Kenya Report #5 Dear All, In this letter I will talk about dress, food, and various customs. In Meru, the people wore western clothing almost exclusively. This is in contrast with the people of Buea, almost all of whom wore traditional clothing say 10% or 15% of the time. The rare person I saw in Meru who had non-western clothing usually was wearing the West African garb I was used to seeing in Cameroon. When we traveled to the Amboseli National Park, a "game park," we saw the Maasai. They dress almost exclusively in traditional garb: the men wear a long bright red cloth wrapped around the waist and then thrown over one shoulder. The difference between the way the Maasai and the Meru (the people living in Meru are members of the Meru tribe) dress reflects a general difference about the way they live. The Maasai seem to be clinging to their traditional life style in lots of ways. Traditionally they were nomadic herders. They continue to be herders but are much less nomadic. In addition to dressing in a traditional style, they still go about armed with a spear (akin to our stereotype of a Texan packing his shotgun in the rear window of the pickup) for self- protection. The one Maasai family we visited lived in small mud huts. The Maasai wear lots of metal jewelry and still create large holes in their ear lobes. (In doing my homework before the trip I read that the Maasai men traditionally would take the stretched out ear lobes and wrap them neatly over the top of the ear. This made me sufficiently alert to observe this in a Maasai who was at the Lamu Palace Hotel, probably hired by the hotel to provide some local color.) I came away from Kenya with the impression that the Maasai, in adapting the least, had a more contented life in Kenya. A few days ago we invited the Keims over for supper, because Kurt is an Africanist at Moravian College (although presently dean of the faculty and not teaching). He says that the notion that scholars dispute the notion that the Maasai have been unaffected by modernity, that they have accommodated to western culture in many ways, that they essentially market the appearance that they are hewing to tradition, e.g., the Maasai demand money for any pictures you take of them. The food in Meru was much more like the food in the US than the food in Cameroon. The few traditional dishes I ate were composed of ingredients that are commonly eaten here. Of course, there was more reliance on tropical fruits, but none that I ate were very exotic: banana, papaya, pineapple, etc. There was much more emphasis on meat in the diet, perhaps because Kenya is more developed than Cameroon. Almost every meal had some meat or poultry. The meat was more varied, however. In addition to beef, goat and lamb were commonly served. One interesting dish consisted of mashed potatoes and banana. It struck me as an unusual combination, but it was quite good. I have already commented on the great abundance of milk. The Kenyans serve tea on almost any occasion. It is usually heated in the morning and kept in thermoses, ready to be served at a moment's notice. One day I traveled around to about 8 schools. At some point on each visit, the headmaster or headmistress would bring out a thermos of tea and offer us some. I am not a tea drinker, but was able to respond with good manners, because the Kenyans serve the tea mixed with about 30% milk. In Cameroon Janice and I always boiled our drinking water. When traveling, we always bought bottled water. Cameroonians, by and large, drank the local water, which was supposedly treated. In Meru, at least, most of the people do not trust the local water, so they boil their drinking water. That made it easy for us to get good drinking water. Just as in Camerooon, the meal itself does not usually function as a social occasion for the family, although there are some public meals that do serve a social function. Thus, families do not usually eat together. In Cameroon most everyone I knew was at least tri- and usually quadri- lingual. Their first language was their tribal language, their second language was pidgin, their third language was either French or English, and their fourth language whichever of French or English was not their third language. I can say roughly the same thing of the Kenyans. Their first language is tribal, the second Swahili, and the third English. Pidgin is the lingua franca of West Africa, while Swahili is the lingua franca of East Africa. The English spoken in Kenya is quite different from that spoken in the US but strikingly close to that spoken in Cameroon. This made communication very easy for me. In Cameroon I initially had many confusing discussions because of the differences in semantics, idioms, and pronunciation between American and Cameroonian English. I skipped that phase in Kenya. I simply reverted to a vaguely Cameroonian accent and use of language. Kenyans, just like Cameroonians, start almost any social interaction with a greeting, usually in the form of a handshake. This is a subtle social convention. In the US, we have many interactions where we do not greet people. When I went to the bursar's office the other day, I went to the counter and simply waited for someone to serve me. When someone approached I immediately initiated the business transaction. In Kenya and Cameroon, this would be unbearably rude. I should start by saying hello to the person, asking how they are, and (provided there was no counter in the way) shaking their hand. Somewhat for my own amusement, since my return from Cameroon I routinely greet a person before any interaction. It catches many people off guard, because for many interactions our customs do not call for such a greeting. I remember when we first moved to Portland OR that I was confused by what I thought were the over-friendly clerks who greet the customers, unlike the clerks around here who often seem to ignore the customers. Saying goodbye in Kenya also calls for handshakes. With large groups of people, this can get clumsy.