it's such a strange world we live in, ey?

Class seems to be a variable.

No matter whether in Santa Monica or in Loresho, there is a conversation that doesn't change. Or in South C Los Angeles or in South B Nairobi.

The world is changing but some things are not.

Jamming

I am angry at myself. Because I am sitting here trying to encourage some girls to join in the Jam Session at the Finissage of UN-known Spaces at Goethe Institute. And they don’t want to. The guys are free styling, and the girls are only comfortable with the songs they have practiced.

I remember this whole thing about running towards our fears and how our biggest joys are waiting for us there. It makes me angry like that stupid Rumi quote with that meadow beyond right and wrong where we can meet and stuff. When I was young, I went to an illegal jam session in Switzerland. It was in an abandoned freight wagon station at the outskirts of town. This is where the Colombian and I did things I can’t speak in public of. This is also where the bar tender told me I had to start drinking and smoking to get my act on. This American guy who was apparently extended family with TBone, the famous blues guitarist, had helped me pick my first electric guitar. A Fender Rhodes. The jam session confused me deeply. I wanted to die. I tried anyway because I was braver then than I am now. Girls (yes I am generalizing) are scared to go wrong and be judged and things and then they stop going to jam sessions and never learn how to do this really. 

It is sad.

There is nothing I can say actually because I have no right to encourage girls to free style and not have the balls myself to go up there and grab the guitar and just try my luck at it. Let’s start encouraging each other to do this. Screw perfection.

The Good Story.

When she is telling her story, sobbing, I get this creeping feeling that I know that guy. I ask her straight up is it 'Don Juan #2' (name changed by author :)? She stops dead in her track as she picks up her jaw from the floor and with a little hick-up in her now tiny voice she says 'yes. how did you know that?'

Because, I know the story.

And it is so good! Very appealing. I am afraid I am becoming one of these people who start seeing everything as marketing. The problem is really that there is no consumer society around here in the wild wild East of Africa that then can help you make claims to return something or get reimbursed. It is almost like Berlin! A self service store of sorts. If you buy a product with the entire package you also have to read the small print, and it almost always says 'you can't complain because we told you so'.

His story is great. Here is why: As a mzungu girl you have a lot of options in this town. It is sad, in a way, but also a fact. Perhaps it is true that I can't go around and judge the taste of people or the power of 'otherness' for our biologically informed decisions, but I can see the trend. Many times I will win over my beautiful Kenyan sister (eh, the ridiculously beautiful one who doesn't only look like a Goddess descended from the heavens but who also has charm, wits and a golden heart) because I am white. And I am saying that with an upsetness inside because I am really not the prettiest girl around the block. As an esthetic person I would say that I am an average good looking person. My whiteness is overriding that in this country. I am always impressed and relieved when that doesn't seem to be true, because me, too, I want it to be about people and personalities. Anyways, I digress. So, with these many options in town we hetero women run into different types of men. Some want our passports (and I love the ones who say that straight up into my face), some want the status upgrade that seems to come with having a white girlfriend (I disagree with history on this one but perhaps it is just biology trying to trick us into diversity and most probably it is about economics), some are just into white girls (and that's okay but leaves a lot of question marks in every direction) and others are not interested (that is usually very interesting) and really don't need you at all. Very appealing.

I remember, how in the beginning some guy friends of mine who see themselves as Kenyan middle class, were complaining about white girls falling for the rasta man in informal settlements - why? Because they want to, I don't know, satisfy their socio-romantic solidarity with the poor. Because artists cut across class and are wildly interesting. Because, reasons. Why doesn't she fall for me? Is it the middle class? Is it his personality? Maybe it is really just about people, and that would make me happy in the end. But let's be honest - dating and sex and all these things have never been just what we want to make them be. It has always been about a lot more factors than just obvious ones.

To go back to our question: his story is great because it takes us from the slums to self-empowered wealth. It is essentially like having a cake and eat it too. You have that phoenix story, sitting with a man who can treat you to an expensive dinner that in the back of your mind makes you feel guilty because you realize this is half of the salary of your housekeeper for a month. A man, who essentially doesn't need you. But who says, that he is tired of this Nairobi dating scene. That there must surely be more to life than this. That's when you get hooked. It is a triple success: Someone who has risen, who doesn't need you but declares he is tired of sleeping around.

We always want something different. If you fall for this story and you added ideas what this really is about and then don't get out what you expected it is quintessentially your own fault. Not to say that people shouldn't be transparent and so on, but let's face it: we want to believe the story and we don't want to read the small print or even better - contain our sprouting fantasies to see what is really going on. And, to be sure, it is not that the story was even a lie. It is what this person chooses to share and what you want to hear. It is a golden sunset and a hero riding on his horse into it.

Marketing: The Compassionate Heart

I can't help but cringe a little bit when she says 'oh, is it that woman around Yaya? I know her, she talks to me all the time.' He then pitches in 'I know her too... she has been around for a while.'

Why is it, that we feel tricked when we fall for a good story? In the end, did it really matter? An old woman conning people on the street should use any story that gets her money, if you think of it. It is in no way different from any other marketing out there. You sell the story that people need to hear to initiate a transaction. 'Don't feel bad' they say. 'Don't feel bad at all.' But I can't help it. I also feel bad when I get goosebumps by ads for Samsung or when I fall for one of Nairobi's Don Juans like every other white girl I meet afterwards. But that's a story for another time.

Yesterday night was the moment that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had overdosed on sugar and my giddiness spilled over into the street. With swinging steps I made my way back home because I am one of those wazungu who proudly declare that they don't care and still walk at night regardless of what our Kenyan (and expat) friends say about that. Until something happens, of course.

This old woman runs up to me. She doesn't ask for money, she asks for a job, because it is better to do something than to beg. Because, she has two children and so on, sometimes she can't put food on the table for two days in a row. My sugar high is wilting by the second. We talk. My friend says, when you talk, you are already hooked. So I am hooked and we talk. I say, we already have a housekeeper. She says you are a very good boss. Such a good person. That you talk to an old woman who has nothing on the street. The other people who are streaming back into Kibera in their suits and broken shoes turn their heads. I say, in fact, I am not the boss. The landlady is the boss. She says that doesn't matter, you are a good person. I ask her if she has a phone, so I can perhaps refer her to someone who is looking for a housekeeper. That would be nice she exclaims but I don't have a phone, see, my son had fees coming up in school so I had to sell my phone. 

I feel terrible. My hand is playing with the money I just got out of the ATM. I say, here, please take this money and I want to give her 2k. I say, I really don't want to perpetuate this image, that white people have money just because we are white. In fact, I am a student and I live on a shoestring budget too but of course, while I have a shoestring she doesn't even have any shoes, perhaps. And of course, as the money in my hands is derisively sneering at my claim of brokeness, I can't help myself and give her the entire three thousand shillings I had in my pockets for the next couple of days. We end the conversation with her promising me to buy a phone and call me the next day to show me that my money really went somewhere good. Then there is something about Kisumu and Luos and a high five and she disappears into the dark. I stagger home, meet some friends who laugh at me having been conned but with tears in my eyes I say 'she looked like my Mom'. I couldn't help myself. I don't care if I was conned. Not until the next day, when they said they knew her too. My claim to uniqueness dissipating in thin air.

It is hard for me to see old people going through trashcans. In my european hometown as well as here in Nairobi. It is almost worse than seeing children begging. And yet, so far I was able to walk past most of the working people in the street who market towards my compassion. Often I will walk past a blind-ish crippled person and think to myself: your story is not touching my compassionate heart. It is no different than me walking past the shoes and clothes in the stores that I have no money for. 

In the very same moment I think 'what would Jesus do?' and while my friends would be surprised to hear this because they don't know me as an overtly religious person, I am actually serious about that. Jesus didn't have a blue print how to treat people. He healed one person and sent them back to the village so they could tell everyone what happened. The next one he told to never go back and keep it a secret. Of course Jesus wouldn't just give money to everybody. He would probably sit down and talk and see what really is up. What caused this? Where is your share of responsibility in this life? Are you living a smaller version of yourself? Is society proportionally more to blame?

Sometimes I am thinking, in a way this marketing of the poor is a more direct way than going for the marketing of NGO's who then need a lot of the money to pay salaries and hardship allowances and furniture of their staff. Perhaps systemic change is more important but also maybe just giving a poor person money as they are working their ass off on the streets appealing to our twisted and tortured hearts of compassion is also just that - a transaction of goods. And sometimes we buy, and sometimes we don't. I am remaining with a big question mark in my heart.