Today I wanted to buy some bananas ... shouldn't be hard to do, since there are tons of banana plants growing everywhere in Ribe ... yet I couldn't find any. None of the little shops we frequent ever carry bananas, since they only seem to be used as subsistence farming. This seems odd, because bananas are essentially a communal food - one tree has one branch that produces 30 bananas that all ripen at the same time, then it is done for the season. I can't imagine eating 30 bananas one day and none the rest of the time, but perhaps if your family is large enough and you have enough trees it could work. Anyway, I ran into a smart boy I know and asked him if he knew where I could get some. He offered to go look for me, since he was on a bicycle and I figured he would probably just visit someone's farm. About 20 minutes later, he came back empty-handed. "No bananas?" I asked. "Yes, there are no bananas," he replied.
2. Plant a tree
The other day I taught my English class immediately after they had Social Studies, and the lesson was still on the board. I noticed it was about the importance of trees for the environment and why you should plant 2 trees for every one you chop down. Now, for your average American this may be all rhetoric, but for rural Kenyans this is immediately practical. Their families cut down trees to clear land for farming, to use as firewood, to build houses, etc. It's not that they don't care, but that those are the necessities of the situation. Then tonight I saw on the news that new regulations are requiring all farmers to allocate 10% of their land for tree planting, and that river banks should have trees, not farming, within 50 metres of the edge. Now, I don't know about environmental or agricultural policy in the US, but both the lesson and the news seemed to be very encouraging that the country is continually emphasizing sustainable practices that will be good for the entire community. Let's just hope they provide resources and incentives to make it happen.
3. Kusalimia
You would think that after 6 months in Kenya I would remember very standard cultural norms like greeting people ... but no. Sometimes, especially after being particularly task-oriented doing work at home, I forget that I am in an uber-process-oriented culture (shout out to Steve Weaver for forcing me to be more process-oriented, by the way). When I walk to school I usually wave to the people I see and say "habari asubuhi" or some other greeting, but these are usually people I don't really know. The other day I was running late to school and when a woman yelled out "Lozi!" I just turned, waved, and yelled my greeting. In the US this would be totally acceptable ... but not here. I realized as soon as I got to school that I had probably really offended her by not going over and chatting for a while. In fact, it would have been significantly more important to greet ("kusalimia") her than to be on-time to school. When I saw her again a few days later I went to chat, and she remarked that she hadn't seen me a long time, since the wedding in December. Just further proof that making visual and vocal contact with a person does not count as "seeing" them ... you are invisible until you shake hands!
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