Young's Birthday Present

Okay, so this is definitely a post from the archives, but I wanted to share some awesome pictures from Young’s birthday in Mombasa. Neema introduced us to one of her co-workers at the Mombasa Marine Park, and they arranged for us to go by boat into the Marine Park. We had no idea what we were in-store for, so we didn’t even put on our trunks (a really stupid decision on reflection, since uh, duh, what did we expect when going to a Marine Park?) However, at least we had shorts on, so jumping in the water for a couple hours of snorkeling was not a problem. The great guys from the Wildlife Service took us out, pointed out incredible fish and reefs, and provided all the gear. Young agrees – what an awesome birthday gift! Thanks KWS!!!

Ex-pats and Locals

My experiences in Kampala and Nairobi could not be more different. In comparison to Nairobi, Kampala is small, quiet, relaxed. The Ugandans are also incredibly friendly and laid-back – making traveling there really quite fun. Kampala is also noticeably safer, freeing me up to move around and wander in the ways that I’m used to. In Nairobi, I’ve felt somewhat restricted, just based on all of the warnings I’ve received from local friends (it’s called Nairobery by many ex-pats for goodnessake!) Given this, I had the pleasure of exploring more, and that led to a more intimate connection with the city, not to mention finding more western foods and good restaurants to eat at.

However, more than any characteristics of the cities themselves, I think my experience in both has been different because of the people I’ve interacted with. In Kampala, we spent most of our time with ex-pats. We stayed with my friend Branimir, a classmate of mine from Hungary who is now doing environment-related work in Kampala with a large European agency. He in turn, lives in a house with 3 other ex-pats, an American, a Swede, and a Australian. Young also had ex-pat friends in Kampala, mostly from the States. Thus, most of our time was spent with ex-pats in the city, whether it was at restaurants, cafes, or bars, and the conversations we had reflected this. We talked about how hard life could be in Uganda, we heard local ex-pat gossip, we found out that being Asian was a security boon for us since everyone assumed we knew kung-fu, and we talked about how people got to Kampala in the first place.

Nairobi has been exactly the opposite, largely due to how many people we met through Neema and Leo. We’ve been lucky to get to crash with three of Leo’s good friends the entire time we’ve been here, and they’ve even been kind of enough to give up their beds for us. (In fact, they have insisted, despite protest put up by Young and myself that we would be perfectly fine on the couch.) The real benefit to staying with locals though is not free housing – it is the insight and cultural exchange that occurs in those lazy evening hours in front of the television. We were schooled on Kenyan politics, we got a chance to see local pop culture (Love ???? anyone?), and we had the pleasure of sharing dreams and aspirations.

What surprised me most was how open and willing everyone we met in Kenya was to going abroad. Some, like Leo’s brother, couldn’t wait to get to the US and spend some time there, despite the prospect of potentially having to leave his wife and kids in Nairobi. Others were excited to go abroad, to look for opportunities outside of the country, and to experience something different. Many of them would jump at the chance to go, despite having well-established lives in Kenya. While many will just chalk it up to the lure of the West, I think there’s something different at work here – namely the fact that nearly all Kenyans have relatives and friends who have settled abroad. For them, moving abroad is something that is incredibly normal, simply because it actually is very commonplace. They have, somehow, grown used to having great distances between brothers, sisters, parents, and friends - despite, as my talks with Leo and Neema have proved, the universal concern about being so far away from ones parents and family. At the end of the day, I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not.

The same, in Nairobi

Young and I spent a wonderful evening with Leo and Neema the other night, just chatting over coffee at Nairobi Java House. We talked for hours, about a huge range of topics, sharing our views, our values, and our experiences. At some point during the evening, as we were discussing Leo’s potential scholarship to a prestigious school in the US, it just struck me how amazing it was that I was here in Nairobi, having coffee with a friend I first met in Budapest, and talking about life in Boston. What a wonderful world that we live in, that we can have a meaningful discussion which was made possible through the strange cosmic interaction of events and activities on three different continents.

Our conversation veered into topics and territories that I’ve come to expect – these days, my conversations around the globe seem to be more and more similar. We talk about parents, about aging, about our ever evolving relationship with them. We talk about moving away, about visiting friends and family, about how hard it is to balance our dreams and our realities. We talk about our own fears and uncertainties, and our sense of guilt and responsibility to those around us. We talk about these things because these are the things that are in the back of our minds, that are percolating just below the surface, that are the source of both our hope and our stress – because, in essence, these are the things that we care most about and that drive us.

When I first moved to China to teach English almost ten years ago, I remember what a strange creature I seemed to my students. For them, they couldn’t decide if they wanted me to be Chinese or American, although most defaulted to seeing me as generally American. Yet because I had Chinese parents, I elicited an intense curiosity in them. How Chinese IS this guy? Does he think and behave like us, or like those Americans we see on TV? How much of our culture does he understand? What does he consider himself? Most of all, they wanted to know what insight, if any, my dual-cultural identity could shed on their notions of how different Americans were from Chinese people. For instance, why don’t Americans take care of their old parents? How can American parents kick their kids out of the house at 18? How come American students are so lazy?

I found myself frustrated with these questions, in no small part because many were based on false assumptions about the two cultures. I didn’t expect my Chinese students to understand American culture, but I did hope that they could be more introspective about theirs. I pointed out the difficulties in taking care of elderly parents given increased geographical mobility for the kids; I suggested that caring for aging parents wasn’t as simple as sending money home or moving ones parents into ones house. I argued that given the increasing mobility of next generation Chinese, it may be harder for them than they imagine when the unfortunate time comes to figure out how to support their aging parents. More generally though, I became frustrated with these questions because they all focused on the superficial differences between cultures, rather than the similarities we have deep down inside. I told my students that differences did of course exist, but that there were more similarities than differences, and that a real dialogue between cultures could only happen if common ground was identified.

Of course I believed it then, but I did not have any firm foundation in its truth. It was more of a convenient rhetorical tool, used to provoke my students into considering new perspectives (and naturally, to help them realize how much of a genius I am.) Yet, as I’ve wandered the world a bit more and met more people from different backgrounds, I’ve come to realize how true it actually is. The conversations Young and I had with Neema and Leo are just the latest example, but a really remarkable one. When you think about it, we are four people, from three cultures, and two countries, who can sit together and commiserate about the same concerns. We can talk about four sets of parents, born worlds and decades apart, and come to essentially the same conclusions. We can discuss the things that stress us most, and share many of the same types of solutions. We can tell of our dreams and our fears, and recognize each other in their shadows. We are, at the end of the day, more alike than we are different. That’s a really cool thing to think about, and it’s even more cool to live out.

Surviving the near-malaria experience

Well, I've survived my first near-malaria scare. I still am not sure what it was, but I got some sort of stomach bug right as I got off the bus in Mombasa - it could have been the slightly clumpy yogurt I finished the night before, the lack of sleep on the overnight bus, or the horrid weather change from cool and breezy in Nairobi to stinkin' hot and humid in Mombasa. Whatever it was, it knocked me out for at least 24 hours as I spent the first day party on Neema's friend's couch and party curled up in a fetal position at our hotel. I was afraid I had malaria, and it didn't help that everyone who saw me asked "you don't have malaria do you?" Luckily, no chills - outside of the humidity induced ones - and no severe fever beyond normal stomach bug issues, so I think I'm safe. Young escaped my fate and had a much better time, although he was a trooper and kept me company for most of the second day.

I've recovered mostly now, although I'm still having a bit of trouble with bigger meals. I was good enough though, to go out to the Mombasa National Marine Park here to meet up with a friend of Neema's who works for the Kenyan Wildlife Service. He took us out on a KWS boat for a couple hours, right off the coast, where Young and I snorkled and swam with the zebra fish. Awesome!

Anyway, things, as expected, have gone against expectations, and especially against schedules. We have decided to ditch our backup plan of going to Lamu (itself a plan arrived at after we decided we didn't have enough money for Kilimanjaro) and head directly down to Dar es Salaam tomorrow. So, we're finally leaving Kenya, after a few really nice weeks with old friends and new friends.

I don't have anything new and substantive and introspective to post - stomach bugs tend to take away any time for introspection, let along time to write! - so instead, I'll share this video from Kampala, Uganda of a conversation we had with a couple of boda-boda drivers there. Hope ya'll like it!

Young < 3 Digby

We have been in the Masai Mara (the Mara for short) for the past two nights, and I have to say it has been simply amazing. I have talked to some people who claim they are disappointed by the place, but I’m not sure where they went. We have seen all manner of animals, from the plentiful impalas, drogbies, wilderbeast, and zebras to the more elusive giraffes, water buffalo, ilands, rhino, and hippos. We have even had the incredible luck to see a cheetah in the rain, a herd of thirteen elephants, and a group of three young male lions guarding their recent kill (a water buffalo) from jackals and hyenas. Some may call Yellowstone the Serengeti of America, and while Yellowstone is captivating, I am going to draw my line in the sand and say it doesn’t hold a candle in terms of wildlife to the real thing. (The Serengeti and the Mara are actually connected and part of the same overall habitat. Only the nations within which they lie are different – the Serengeti is in Tanzania, and the Mara is in Kenya.)

Even without all the big game though, I am still in love. The landscape is simply stunning. Vast grassland plains, colored a deep green after recent rains, are dotted with acacia trees. In the evening, their silhouette against the setting sun is iconic – the stuff of postcards. The foothills are bushy and rocky, more temperate jungle than savannah, and the watering holes and rivers offer yet another feel. During our three days there, vast and powerful thunderstorms would fly across the open plains, thoroughly drenching the land for a few minutes before moving on. On our second day there, we were working on our computers while waiting to go to lunch and got caught as a huge storm moved in, sending a downpour onto the camp for a good 15 minutes. Then it was gone, and the sun was once again out flirting with the remaining, and less threatening clouds.

The nighttime in the Mara was equally stunning. We cajoled our driver, Mwau, into taking us out at night to search for some hippos. The Fairmont security captain, Chacha, joined us with his high-powered rifle and flood light – apparently no cars are allowed to go on night safari without armed protection. When we got out there, we found the hippos, saw a genet cat, and saw an aardvark. The entire vehicle went silent as we watched it attack a termite mound for minutes, before disappearing into it. Truth be told, we were not even aware of how lucky we were to have seen the aardvark - both Mwau and Chacha mentioned how rare it was and said they had never before seen it in real life, but it was only in the morning when Chacha sought us out that we realized how lucky we actually were. I guess Chacha had immediately called his parents to tell them of the sighting, and they didn’t believe him, so he was intent on getting pictures from us. I think maybe my favorite part of the night safari though was when I asked Mwau to stop the truck, turn off the engines and just let us listen to the night and stare at the sky for five minutes. I felt so incredibly refreshed and recharged – it was a peace and wonder that is not often found amongst people and in cities. One thought ran through my mind - everyone should be able to experience this at one point in their lives.

There were some things that made me sad. Our safari involved us off-roading through much of the park, and there were times when Mwau deliberately drove our truck up very close to animals, obviously disturbing their activities. The tracks left behind by multitudes of off-roading vehicles turn into ruts and informal roads. The Masai have villages around most major tourist camps and sell “visits” to their camps to tourists. I’m not sure what this does for their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, but my gut tells me it can’t be good. Yet on the whole, it was a really amazing experience. I always dreamed of going on safari, but surprisingly, the safari exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds. It is not one I will soon forget.

PS: Digby’s are a crazy cute, monogamous, little deer-like animals that Young and his eagle-eyes mistook for everything from a rabbit to an Impala.

Wonderland in Nairobi

I don’t want to play favorites and all, but Neema and Leo’s wedding may take the top spot. Perhaps it was the newness of it all, or it could have been the mere fact that I was in Africa, but of all the weddings I’ve been to, on this trip and before, this may be the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding. I think the main reason this wedding was so fun was the fact that everyone else was having a ball. There was a palpable joy at the wedding that showed in every smile, dance step, and burst of laughter. It started with Neema and Leo and infected virtually everyone else, myself included. Almost unconsciously, I smiled until my cheeks were sore at the end of the day.

The wedding was to be held outdoors, and there was a real fear that we would have rain in Nairobi. It had rained for almost the entire week, and there was no guarantee that it would not be the same on Saturday. There was indeed some gloom in the morning when we woke up, but by the time we made it to Neema’s house for the traditional picking up of the bride, the sun had broken through the clouds and the sky was looking beautifully blue; Neema and Leo would have nice weather.
Which was good, because Neema’s house required a drive through less than stellarly-maintained dirt roads which would have turned into mud with the rain. It would have wreaked havoc on all of the plans, but as it was, Neema, her bridesmaids, and her family were able to walk out the house and up the hill with no trouble at all. Like Son and Trang’s wedding, the pre-ceremony picking up of the bride is an important part of the day’s proceedings. Leo’s family and friends drove over to Neema’s house, where she and her family were waiting. The female members of Leo’s family then went to the front door of Neema’s house and began singing “knock, knock, can we come in?” in Swahili. They continued to sing until Neema came out of the house. Once she did, the procession began marching up the hill outside Neema’s house to the cars waiting at the top. Everyone involved with the wedding got back into their respective cars for the drive to the venue, while the rest of the many people gathered to watch (mostly curious community members and children) were left to stare at the disappearing convey of cars.

I have to say here that I am a big fan of the idea of family members going to pick up the bride for the wedding. There’s something special about the process that involves the two families having a common goal and creating a shared experience right at the start. The respect paid to the parents through this process is also quite nice. Obviously I will have to consult the future Mrs. Pan, but I am pretty sure that I want to do this at my own wedding. I would love to have my groomsmen and my family go to pick up my future wife from her family. Who knows if could happen, but it would be nice.

The ceremony took place at the Karen Blixen Coffee Gardens, which is a well-known tourist attraction because it was home to the author of “Out of Africa” for twenty years in the early 20th century. The venue was beautiful, and the weather perfect. The clouds protected us from the strongest sunshine most of the day, which was good since the ceremony lasted two hours. While you would expect a two hour ceremony to be painful, it was in fact not. Punctuated by singing, prayer, vows, and poetry, it was fun, entertaining, and heartwarming. Yet the reception afterwards was where the real fun was. Good, hearty, Kenyan food was accompanied by singing, chanting, dancing, and performances. Dozens of guests got up and danced together as amazing singers and musicians from Neema and Leo’s church (he’s a worship pastor at a local congregation) played – for lack of a better way of describing it and for fear of sounding ignorant – African praise music with deep beats and rhythm. I couldn’t figure out how the steps went, but I was in the circle, moving around and taking pictures, and I had the time of my life.

Truth be told, the wedding was not what I was expecting. It was, in many ways, more western than I pictured. The wedding dress, the flowers, the ceremony, the reception – all of it was familiar. Yet at the same time, the activities and the energy was uniquely Kenyan. It was just so much fun, and there was so much joy there. It made me think of how much more reserved (in general) our weddings are and how we seem to have lost some of the community and celebratory feel that I think a wedding should have. In fact, all three of the weddings I have been to so far have been quite fun. Even Kath and Danny’s wedding, which is the most western, was infused with their unique humor and sensibilities (the university references in their vows was especially appreciated) and more tongue in cheek than most. I know it’s a long way off, but I hope I can figure out a way to have that same fun whenever I have my own wedding.

Leo and Neema, a Kenyan Wedding

It has been a rather unexpectedly difficult couple of days. It all started on arrival in Nairobi when I waited around for my checked luggage for an hour. Despite having checked in at the same time as Young and being on a simple, direct flight from Dubai to Nairobi, my bag somehow did not make it. Both of Young’s bags did. I too am at a loss as to how to explain that. In any case, the next hour was dedicated to trying to figure out where my bag was and to arguing with the Emirates baggage handlers as to when I could expect my bags and if they were going to give me any money. The end result? No idea about the bag, no money until later, and making my poor friend Neema late for her own wedding rehearsal.

I spent the next day trying to recover my bag. Thankfully, I got it by 7pm, but it was not an enjoyable process… both for me and for my suit, which has been the only clothing I have had access to in the past three days. Thank gosh I dry cleaned it in Bangkok, but the poor thing has not stayed clean for very long.

In any case, today is the big day. As I write this, we are waiting to head out to pick up Neema for the wedding. Neema’s fiancé Leo has been kind enough to host Young and I for the past two nights. It’s been hectic but also fun, as we’ve been surrounded by some of Leo’s best friends here in the house. Neema and Leo are both Kenyan – Kikuyu actually, so they’re from the same tribe. Leo works at a local church, and Neema is a park warden here in Nairobi. They met on a church mission to a remote area in Kenya called Pokot, where they stayed and worked for 10 days. On the way back, Leo asked Neema on a date and they ended up going bowling and having pizza. That was the start of it all.

I’ll write more later on Neema and Leo, including some of the harder decisions they have had to make and are going to make in the future, but for now, I’ve got to try to get to Neema’s place to see the picking up of the bride.