Being "White" in Nairobi

This past Sunday, I was walking through Uhuru park with two Kenyan friends when one of the many child beggars came up to me with a cup in hand. Except this time, the 11-12 year old wasn’t begging from me; he was demanding. “Hey mzungu (swahili word for white or foreigner). Feed me!” He shook his cup fiercely at me. “Feed me mzungu!” I ignored him out of habit and kept walking with my friends, but I couldn’t help quickly glancing over to see what the boy would do- he was so unusually rude. I found him staring at my ass, and when he realized that I wasn’t going to give him anything, he smirked “I like your swagger.” In that moment, a huge part of me debated turning around, striding to the boy and slapping him. “Did your mother teach you to say that?” I wanted to ask him. “Where is your sense of dignity?” But I let it go and kept walking.

In the following days, I mentally replayed the encounter many times. The scenario with the little boy bothered me for a number of reasons. The way he shouted “mzungu” to me highlighted myself as the outside “white” person, and he as the local Kenyan who reminded me of my foreign status. According to him, I can never truly fit in because I am “white.” By demanding that I “feed him,” my skin color not only alienated me, but also turned me into a symbol of money; and thus I was obligated to give him money, food, and be content with having to pay higher prices for my race. And finally, when I showed no signs of acknowledging him, he tried to reduce my worth to my “swagger,” a.k.a. ass. He was implying that because I, a mzungu woman, didn’t comply to his initial demands, he now has the right to objectify my body and humiliate my sex.
I, a mzungu woman.
A “white” woman.

View of Nairobi from the KICC building

*** 

I have really come to love my life here in Nairobi: I love my job, I have great apartment-mates, I can get around easily with public transportation, I am part of a great church community, and I surrounded by amazing Kenyan friends. For the most part, I have found Kenya to be a beautiful country, filled with amazingly hospitable people, incredible landscapes and wildlife, and a rich culture to be proud of. I’m not looking forward to leaving my life here behind. However, I never expected to wrestle over a strange new set of racial dynamics. The chessboard of race, it seemed, had flipped and completely rearranged upon my arrival from Los Angeles to Nairobi. In the United States, I am confident standing in solidarity with my black and latino community and familiar with the racial issues-I know the values I stand for and why I choose to fight for them. I understand the privilege that being Asian-American brings, but I also know that I am part of the “model minority,” until I’m not (see Peter Liang.) Nevertheless, we tend to be silent in the racial discussions- so if I really wanted to, my asian heritage allows me to stay out of the civil rights spotlight. But in Nairobi, some (not all) Kenyans have roped me into the same category as white people- there is little distinction between me- an asian mzungu, and a blonde-haired, blue-eyed mzungu. (To be fair, even with my olive complexion, whenever I take pictures with my Kenyan friends, I still look pretty pale compared to their darker skin tones.) All of a sudden, I can no longer hide behind my asian ethnicity as an excuse to avoid racial conflict. People are just as likely to charge me higher prices as the white man standing in line behind me. Street children are just as likely to harass me for money as they would another American tourist.

pale me

David Anderson, a lecturer in African Studies at Oxford, writes "Whatever his background, every white man who disembarked from the boat at Mombasa became an instant aristocrat." Whereas in Los Angeles I was the struggling post-graduate, I can easily afford a cleaning lady here in Nairobi. These new racial dynamics in East Africa are confusing to me, because even though I was offended by remarks such as that little boy’s, he is right in assuming that I am more wealthy. Unlike racism in the states, I am treated differently not because my race is oppressed, but because my “white” race was the oppressor. A brief digging into Britain's colonization of Kenya (unsurprisingly) unearths mountains of atrocities- from banishing ethnic tribes to reserves too small to sustain them, to torture and humiliation of rebel suspects, to carrying out a campaign that slaughtered members of the Kikuyu tribe by the thousands. After over a century of European colonization by the Portuguese, then the British, it may be that my being “white” sometimes taps into decades of hurt and injustice. Again, it is the story of the rich minority oppressing the poor majority. Although Kenya has now been an independent country for over 50 years, mzungus still take up a good percentage of Kenya’s elite and wealthy.

This is not to say that the little boy was in the right or that I should be guilted into giving him money, because "whiteness" and privilege are not sins. However, I have to acknowledge that that generally, white ex-patriots do have more wealth; and if I want to live like Jesus, I need to discern how to bless my Kenyan community with the blessings I have been given. I am reminded of this income gap every time I pay for rent, splurge on a $4 drink or $20 meal, and come home to greet my apartment’s security guard knowing that he makes less than $200 a month. At the end of the day, I am the one going home to my gated apartment complex-with unlimited internet, hot showers, huge bed, and refrigerator stocked with my favorite foods. I may experience prejudice, but unlike African Americans and Latinos back at home, it is because I am easily part of the 1% here. It’s a twisted and sobering identity to grapple with: while I try to extend grace to the few Kenyans who see my skin color as profit opportunity, I am also trying to figure out what it looks like to use my privilege for good- and be smart about it.

A friend's neighborhood in Kibera, one of the slums in Kenya

This is an open-ended, disorganized post because I have no answers; and of course there are still so many things that I don’t understand. Two months in Nairobi is barely enough time for me to gather my thoughts together about a whole new racial system- where suddenly black is the majority; and it seems that “white” and “asian” practically mean the same thing. Racial issues are tough enough to tackle in one’s home country, and it is a completely different monster when you are an ex-patriot. It sucks to know I may be treated differently because of my race, or that people sometimes address me only by my skin color, or that people slap stereotypes on me before they get to know me (I've had people ask if I knew that Africa was a continent- not country, if I support Trump, if I do karate, or if I eat dogs.) If nothing else, my shallow experience here with prejudice has given me a better understanding of the injustice many of my black and latino friends encounter on a daily basis. Nairobi has given me the opportunity to learn what it is like to be stereotyped by my race, and also challenged me to think more deeply about the privilege my "whiteness" brings. If God used Moses' privilege as the prince of Egypt to lead the Israelites out of slavery, I am sure God can also use my privilege to bless my community around me, too.

Thankful for my Kenyan friends <3

Con tanto amore,

Kayee

My Blazing, Gypsy Italian Summer: l'estate da vivere

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold." 

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

stormclouds over the alps in Aosta

It’s been over four months since I’ve returned from Italy; seven since I left LA for the film program CinemadaMare (Cinema of the Sea). Quite frankly, up until now, I didn’t have the heart, or the courage to write about my journey in Italy. Posting this entry has an aching sense of finality to it as I let summer 2015 go and embrace the new year. It’s a bittersweet moment, but I know I have to move on in order to grow.

When the plane took off in the summer haze of late June 2015, and I made my journey to Europe, I wondered if I had over-exerted the wanderer in me and made a mistake running off again- barely a month after returning from Tanzania. I wasn’t ready for Italy, I thought. Traveling yet again to new territories had begun to scare me. Perhaps I didn’t want to move around anymore. Perhaps I just wanted to settle down with the guy I was dating then and be normal. Little did I know I was headed straight into the craziest, most beautiful, and emotionally-charged supernova summer.

midnight dancing in the rain

When young, international filmmakers are thrown together- creating, dreaming, laughing, crying, finding a way to make the best out of refugee-like living situations, a special bond is formed. I think back to my first impressions of people a lot- my subconscious labeling of people whom I didn’t have the privilege of sharing life with yet. Some I saw as players, small tyrants, and attention-seekers. Others I marveled for their talent, popularity, or graceful mannerisms. And many I simply was too overwhelmed by new faces to slap a label on.  But gradually, as the weeks flew past, living in community melted quick judgement and even cultural stereotypes, because beneath first impressions is vulnerability, and vulnerability is the start to a tight-knit family. I will never forget the day I watched one of our staff tearfully share how he had not seen his little boy in over 9 years- how every penny he made was saved up for his son. Until then, all I had known of this man was that he was an anxious, temperamental soul with a taste for alcohol. Nor will I forget our last night in Venice, when I took turns playing the piano and sharing music with a new friend. In that moonlit moment, it was as if every stereotype I could have ever slapped on him melted away, and I saw not his physical self, but understood his soul for what God had created him to be.

I learned that the best kind of love was when I knew someone well enough to have been hurt by them; and still knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are a beautiful and worthy human being. The best kind of love is when I see the fingerprints of God on each and every person around me- in their generosity, in their laughter, their humor, their desire to understand one another, and their desire to love and be loved. By the end of the program, I grew to deeply love because I began to see that this is only a fraction of how Jesus must love them too. And gradually, the lessons I learned about love began to be reflected in my own animations created there. They were stories about my family.

I grew accustomed to waking up to 60+ people around me: some hungover, some asleep on their air mattresses, and some already running around with their film equipment. In one particular city, all 80 of us were given one gym to sleep in together, and so we found ourselves stacked side by side together like sardines, one air mattress after another. But what life it was to see people constantly around me, whether it was playing basketball, editing videos, napping, eating fruit and yogurt out of a mug, or drinking matte! Anytime I needed a friend, I found at least 30 in that stuffy gymnasium. The following week we were living, for the first time, in a convent, where we we had our own rooms, bathrooms, and real beds! But I will never forget the first few days of arriving in Aosta when all of us carried an expression of forlornness or loneliness because we didn’t know how to handle being separated from each other. We were feeling the cost of privacy in every shut door, with every wall that separated our lives from each other.

gathering luggage at our new location

silly shenanigans in Maratea

In moments like this I begin to understand the disinterest the Tanzanian Maasai had shown to living in our developed countries, even after touring them. “It’s so lonely,” they had complained. Now I understand. I had once described our living conditions (no privacy, suitcase living, cold showers, gross communal bathrooms, and no stable location) to someone, and in horror he exclaimed “And you want to go back to that?” But in exchange for the incredible community and camaraderie I had experienced in Italy, poor living conditions are a small price to pay indeed. I would give up all my comforts here in a heartbeat just to see all of those lovely faces again. This community had seen me at my best when I was directing my own animated films, interviewing in Italian, smiling at everyone I saw; I felt like the darling of Cinemadamare. But they had also seen me at my worst- days like those in Muro Lucano where I was insecure, hurting and didn’t want to do anything but lay on my air mattress and drown in depression. In between ecstatic, sunshine-filled days; were also moonlit hours of sitting in silence together, contemplating heartbreak, adulthood, and purpose.

Personally, this summer challenged my creativity and faith in a way that no other experience ever had. Artists are free-spirited, unbound by rules, and live for expression. Christianity, on the other hand, has it’s set of values, traditions, and an ultimate purpose that can seem extremely legalistic. I happen to be both an artist and a Christian, and thus found myself caught frequently in a crossfire between both identities. Adapting to this new bohemian culture in Italy meant adopting a new lifestyle that may not align with "western/conservative" Christian culture, yet were not "unbiblical." For example, light social drinking, dancing, and producing controversial/thought-provoking content became something that I thoroughly enjoyed with friends. We weren’t there on a “mission”, we were also participants of Cinemadamare who happened to be Christian, but for me- to hold onto Jesus as my identity had made all the difference. It grounded what I knew to be true of myself amidst waves that could have taken me anywhere. And on that foundation, I discovered a growing purpose not only as an animator, but as an artist to express the beauty I saw in people- whether through language, music, writing, poetry, illustration, or animation. 

Conversazione con Riccio

A Room Without Sense

Io Ti Vedo (I See You)

***

Epilogue

Fast forward to February 2016, and I find myself back in East Africa, wandering around the city of Nairobi like the little nomad I have become. Instead of over-exerting my inner wanderer, I returned with an increased thirst for adventure and a re-kindled desire to be challenged.

soooo thankful for my East African family in Nairobi!

Cinemadamare was a lot of things to me: a film program, a love story, a cultural modge-podge, and a summer that challenged me creatively, emotionally, and spiritually. I think of the day when my two friends and I were the only people atop the peak the Italian alps watching a snowfall way in the distance on a greater mountain.  Or the moment we had just finished filming a Bollywood flash mob, and stayed up late in the evening filming some strange film with medieval costumes and Venetian masks. Or that night in Venice where we got lost and walked past abandoned hospitals to find ourselves on a film set in strange Tim Burton-esque costumes in an abandoned theatre. And there was the day when the four of us escaped to Sicily and stayed at a party too long, so instead of making it back home we drove to a beach house and fell asleep on the pier. I slept on a docked boat, and the three others in lawn chairs. And I remember the times when I saw people break- whether it be from a disapproving father, a loss of identity after trauma, or the most common-heartbreak. But I also remember seeing people opening their hearts to a newfound international family and radiating pure joy.

bollywood flash mob

escaping to Sicily

strange Venetian masks

It was only natural to experience heartbreak in such adventures, because we had fallen in love with each other. Many of us (myself included) hurt deeply after the program because we had loved deeply. For my part, I feel that everytime I reminisce on Cinemadamare, my heart grows a little bigger because I can feel the burning love we have for each other, even when we are separated by oceans and borders. As with the end of any healthy relationship, my summer of 2015 leaves me with shining memories, keepsakes that make me braver, stronger, and kinder to face the world around me. My Italian adventures had imprinted on me a curiosity to search for God in the broken places, and inspired me to bring out the beauty I know is there. Grazie, Cinemadamare, for teaching me to love freely, create fearlessly, and learn ceaselessly. 

The Waiting Room: rainy thoughts from Frankfurt

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost." 
 Jack Kerouac, On the Road 

Cold and rainy Frankfurt

I find international airport terminals an incredibly fascinating place. There is a strange energy of the unknown amidst all the security checks, bustling and rolling of carry-on luggage, running footsteps to catch a close connection, catching a quick shut-eye on a chair. It’s a place where all kinds of people converge for reasons I will never know, going to places I will probably never find out. Just a few hours ago I saw a pair of German brothers snickering at a man who was snoring up a storm in a quiet lounge. An Iranian woman tried to ask me something in broken english, but because I couldn’t understand the initial question, we somehow began discussing how Chinese and Iranian culture have similarities. I met an elderly Croatian lady who proudly told me about her son, who was a doctor in San Diego. International terminals are places where I can catch snapshots of people’s lives, but rarely have the opportunity to hear the whole story. And yet we are all strangers in a foreign land- trapped momentarily in a traveler’s limbo. We are not in our native country, nor have we arrived in our country of destination. I like to think that we are all in one big Waiting Room together.

It’s a rainy day in Frankfurt today and honestly it looks miserable. I’m glad to be inside bundled up in my hoodie and munching on leftover french fries. 3 hours until my 9-hour flight to Nairobi and I’m still feeling pretty stellar despite having come down with a nasty cold 2 days ago. In a desperate attempt to fight a resurrecting sore throat on my last flight, I downed a glass of cognac and discovered two things: I really like the taste of brandy, and it was a fabulous substitute for cough medicine. Win.

Despite having a thousand unknowns whizzing around my head right now, I’m actually feeling pretty zen about the near future. I have an incredible group of local friends there, a nice apartment to live in, and I figure that everything else will fall into place. At this point I’ve traveled and transitioned so much within 2 years that I’ve come to expect the anxiety that comes in the weeks before my departure. Traveling, I believe, takes a great amount of faith and calm surrender because so many things outside of your control will go wrong. Sometimes you arrive in a small town in Italy and realize that no one is around to call you a taxi in the middle of the night. Sometimes you get lost in Germany but no one speaks a lick of English and you speak even less German. Sometimes, you’re just downright stupid. But God had my back every time even in the messiest of situations, and so this time I know this trip will be no different. The risks and spontaneity of travel forces me to acknowledge God’s faithfulness every time.

I do wonder about how I might change when I come back from Nairobi; how Los Angeles may feel alien again; and what new lens this time I will be given to see the world through. For a while, my return from a spectacular summer in Italy meant that I had to wrestle with a new version of myself and a new perspective on the world. What I experienced in Cinemadamare set my following months on a course that I had not anticipated, and now I find myself zooming back out to a new adventure. Out of Los Angeles, out of the Waiting Room.