Life here runs at a slow pace but it doesn't mean it isn't intense in its own sort of way.
Take for example the kids here. I'd have to say that the general population I've met here in Kenya are much less sheltered than any child I've ever met in my life. The other day, I literally watched a 3-year-old navigate through a fence of barbed wire to retrieve a ball (said 3-year-old was later spotted chucking the ball full force at the face of a tied up, but nevertheless, 500-pound bull... the definition of intensity is debatable at this point). Compare this to the fact that many playgrounds in the States have banned tag because it is too "dangerous." Children here, raised this environment, are just tough. Infants can endure flies and skin-scorching weather in silence as they watch me swatting flies away and scurrying for shade. While I watched Barney and lamb chop till the ripe age of 6, children here can buy children's books titled A for Aids, rather than A for Apple.
Sadly, many of the children are exposed to drug use much earlier on as well. Many of the street children get high on glue, enabling them to sift through scraps for metal to sell, ease their hunger, and keep themselves warm at night. It's messed up that previously the only people I've ever heard of getting high on glue were slacker high school dropouts who were bored on a Friday night in their basements, or just an overenthusiastic kindergartener who got too into arts and crafts time. Not 5 or 6 year olds without a home.
I guess it's just weird to me that lifestyles like these exist hand in hand with a really laid back approach to time management. It's a strange shift from home where efficiency is defined as how much you can accomplish in an hour. Here, Americans quickly learn that Kenyans are indeed "champion waiters." If you're walking somewhere with a Kenyan you shoudl add 15 minutes to your travel time so he or she can stop and talk with acquaintences. Enter a room or meet a group, and it's obligatory to shake everyone's hand if there's less than 25 present. And no one seems to ever shoo you away because they do not have time to talk. That would be nonsense.
But one of my favorite mannerisms is how everyone pretty much drops what they're doing when it rains and just gathers under awnings to wait for the storm to pass. I remember once, when a storm passed over the hotel our group was staying at. All the workers just sat around on the porch and talked. I wish I could describe how the air changes and the sky looks right after it rains-- it's a great feeling. Everything feels cleaner, cooler, and the sky gets even clearer than it usually is. While we're watching the rain I tell this one lady how at home, people just throw on a raincoat or grab an umbrella and continue doing whatever it is they were doing. She tells me that we are all crazy.
While I've been here I've found myself wishing many times that the Kenyan conception of tiem was more like that of hte States. Projects would get accomplished. Deadlines would be met. But at the same time I wish people back home, myself included, could take a page or two from this lfiestyle. And learn to be a little more attentive to their relationships, a little more patient with strangers, and a bit happier to live life in less of a rush.
