Culture Shock

I am officially culture-shocked.

I made it to Malindi on the 13^th, arriving my plane via Mombassa. Mombassa is a much larger version of Malindi, and this was my first taste of the omnipresent tuk-tuk and pikkipikki. The pikkipikki is simply a motorbike, while the tuk-tuk is much more interesting—think of a golf-cart sized tricycle with a motor. This thing makes a lot of noise.

Driving on the left side of the road will take some getting used to, but more is the lack of traffic rules and no pedestrian right-of-way. The horn is used as a universal ‘get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-or-you-will-be-hit’ warning. On our way to Mombassa, our driver scraped his under-carriage multiple times because he was driving on the dirt shoulder in order to bypass an accident.

When we arrived at Malindi we went to the beach and had the famous ‘chai,’ which is a milk tea. This is very good and is drunk around 10am every school day. The beach, too, is beautiful. It is no wonder why the Italians come here… but native Kenyans have opposing views of their European guests. Italians bring in drugs and are the monetary source for prostitution. Some Italians, though, do wonderful things for Kenya—at one of the schools that I will be working, the Italians donated much money for computers.

We arrived to the place that I will be living for the better part of the year to complete darkness. Every Thursday, they need to shut off the electricity for maintenance. The place is ‘interesting’ to be culturally sensitive. The bathroom and kitchen, sanitary meccas in Western homes, simply are not here. The place also lacks a fridge or a stove, but I will soon buy kerosene one. Ants are the true resident of this place; I am only their guest. However, compared to other places in this city, I am truly living in luxury. See pictures below.

For what my apartment lacks, my roommate makes up for. Abu Bakar is the head teacher, meaning he is sort of like an assistant principal. He is overwhelmingly kind. I always try to find a middle-ground with payment of tuk-tuk rides to the schools, meals, setting up my mosquito net, etc., because he offers to pay. This is the Kenyan way. I do not want to be an ‘aggressive’ American, but he would iron all my clothes if he had it his way.

I am learning the language as fast as I can, but it isn’t quick enough. I give all of my Spanish teachers so much credit… I would be able to get by in Spanish speaking countries. This is truly the way to learn a language though, after you have that foundation. I think I probably learned about the same in five days than I have in about a semester of Spanish.

On Saturday, I wanted to look for furniture for my room. However, wood, it seems, is very hard to come by. I found out the reason very quickly. After searching for about an hour, we found a chest of drawers that would be nice in my room. As we were looking at it, we pulled out a drawer and there were hundreds of termites chewing happily on the wood. The seller said that he needed to clean it and finish it… but of course I passed on it. I found another one and the man tried to sell it to me for about $200. You could easily find something of better quality on any street corner in New York City. My roommate explained this to me—“sometimes, the dealers just see a color” meaning that I am simply a mzungu (white man.)

I could go on and on, but this is all for now. Teaching starts this week, which will surely be out of this world. Stay tuned.

-Adam