A little bit of reflexivity

There are stories that I will tell, then there are stories that I will never be able to tell. In the past three weeks, my informants have reminded me that Kenya is an unequal society, with the rich living apart from the poor, and the growing middle class constantly yearning for the trappings of the good life. I have met informants who straddle both sides of the divide, who have very different ideas of what it means to be young in Kenya – for some it means having the world as your oyster, for others it means learning to hustle and hustle until you make it.

Like every good anthropologist, I hope my research will spur me into introspection, into looking within my own life to understand the biases that have shaped me, and the experiences that inform my being. Two weeks ago, I met someone who often goes to bed hungry, and it hit me for the very first time what it truly means to go to bed hungry. I have participated in all manner of drives to raise money for starving Kenyans, yet there I was, trying to write about someone whose experience I had only imagined then filed away for another day. I was honored to have met this person, and I shuddered when I imagined that I would never have met him any other way if I had not bothered to undertake this research project. I would never have known the struggles he faces in his daily life, or the great hope that he has in changing his circumstance in life.

Today as I walk into the IDP camp in Nakuru, I am walking with a different understanding of what privilege means in this country, and a deep appreciation of the experiences that continually shape the environments of the young people that I am meeting. There’s the urban life of the movies, the fast life and food, the fancy people with their smartphones and their cars and their Java coffee, then there’s the urban life of the urban poor, the ones whose stories of resilience and friendship I hope I will be able to tell.

What is your urban story?

Making Exceptions

I was sitting down with one of my close high school friends recently, sharing with her about my research project. She mentioned how most people make exceptions when it comes to social relationships. We may dislike entire ethnic groups, but then we single out one person whom we crown as our friend. That one person does not embody the vices that we point out in other people from the said-ethnic group. Instead, we invite him or her into our inner circle, and they become the exception.

Naturally, I know that we can’t make friends with everyone. Each one of us “makes exceptions” based on our values or goals. And even though we uphold a constitution and a shared human ethos that abhors discrimination on a set criteria (depending of course on your geographical location), we still inadvertently (or even deliberately) decide on the people with whom we form tight bonds.

Kenyan society, due to its foundation on ethnic bonds, has grown into one that makes exceptions largely, I believe, because of patronage. Patronage, in the sense that individuals expect to receive favoritism from the big-man in their ethnic group. On a smaller scale, this could translate to receiving favors when you are deemed as mtu wetu, one of our own. This belonging suddenly allows us access from small circles of friendship, to political parties, to business deals, to bonds that stretch entire lifetimes. One of my advisors asked me once to consider the prospect that patronage may indeed be good, for example, when it doesn’t cause discord in a society and allows each one to have access to the national treasure. In such a scenario, I suppose, making exceptions along ethnic lines becomes vital to ensuring that resources are distributed fairly.

In an intimate relationship like friendship, does this scenario also come to play? What do you think about “making exceptions”? Does it feature in your everyday life?

Why Friendship?

I grew up oblivious to Kenya, oblivious to the inter-personal interactions that edged towards inter-ethnic conflict. I am told that my family was caught up in the clashes of 1992, and that I lived with my grandparents in the time that chaos overwhelmed the dusty town of Nakuru. But even then, I was too young for the memories to lay hold of me, to remind me that I could not grow up oblivious to Kenya.

My coming of age moment came in high school, quite late I must admit, perhaps it was also the time that it happened for many people, at least people who fall in my age category, 18-25. I was in Form Four at the time that the 2007-08 post-election violence, and I remember all to well the whispers in the corridors of Bruce House, the prayers offered up to God during 4 a.m. devotions, the observations from my friends, the fears and hopes that engulfed a nation. Everyone, I think, has a story about that time. Everyone who cares about Kenya, who has lived in Kenya, who knows someone close who claims to be from the country. I did not directly suffer any losses. I was safe for the entire period, and I am painfully aware what a privilege that is in this country. Months before, I had talked with a few young children in the area about the politics in Kenya. One child told me how he hated Raila Odinga. This shocked me, and since that day, I have kept wondering how our education has taught us to be Kenyan citizens, how friendship has taught us to look beyond the outer covering to the inner soul. I participated in drama and music festivals in high school, and such experiences filled me with great pride in the beautiful cultural make-up in Kenya. It sounds cliche, I know, but I fell for the narrative, the one that espouses Kenya to be a diverse landscape of peace and tranquility. Until my coming of age moment became coming to terms with this paradox: How we can take pride in both our ethnic and national identities yet live in the midst of great tension?

I have used my time in university to think about this paradox, to view it from all corners that I can, from the lenses that education has allowed me to explore. One of my professors told me to use my life to answer the question that keeps me up at night. I want to answer this question. I want to think and ask and research and explore, use my curiosity to engage friendship as a means of questioning my society, of understanding the place that I have called home for the last twenty-two years. I want to learn about friendships, because I have gained so much from my own, because friendship has sustained me, has allowed me to love someone who could look beyond me, could accept me just as I am, without the ethnic baggage, with the questions that keep me up at night.

I want to learn about your friendships. How has your experience been?