Reunions

Hello everyone!

I just finished this short video recap of my December trip to Kenya. (A big thanks to my awesome friend Jessica for helping me put it together.) Thought you may want to a have a look . . .

More soon!

All the best – Laura Lee Huttenbach / Nkirote :)

Why Africa?

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“But why Africa? What made you go there?”

I get this question in a variety of forms whenever I talk about my African backpacking adventure or the work I’m doing now. The first part of the answer is easy. In 2006, one of my best friends from UVA was finishing up her Peace Corps service in Lesotho (an independent country located within South Africa, south of Swaziland). At the time, I was teaching English in Brazil. My friend called and asked what my plans were after I left. When I hesitated, she proposed, “Why not meet me here and then let’s backpack Africa together?” Why not indeed. So in July of that year, I bought a one-way plane ticket to Johannesburg, South Africa. Nearly six months later, I would fly home from Cairo.

The second part of my answer to “Why Africa?” is that I could never picture the place. Media images from the continent focused on violence, poverty, corruption, and disease—oh, or lions and zebras. But what about the people? What about the culture? What about the history? Not that Africa is one homogeneous setting—far from it. My travels were limited to the south, east, and northeast. Africa is the second-largest continent, home to hundreds of different ethnic groups and languages and cultures. But I didn’t know all that before I visited.

I wanted to go and see for myself as much of the continent as I could. Most of what I learned was through conversations and experience—by seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, and hearing the countries that I visited. When I met the General in Kenya, in October 2006, he told me he had just spent a month in my country earlier that year. “I’d long been wanting to go and see a developed country,” he said. “I thought to go to Britain, but my friend said, ‘Come and see the glory of America.’ So I said I’ll go there. I didn’t bother to go because of politics or anything. I wanted to see the people themselves, inside. And the way of the place and how they live and where they get their food.”

I asked him what he thought of the people. “They are good. You are very democratic in that country. People there work and eat. That’s what I tell people here—the Americans work and eat.” The General’s reasons to go to America were similar to mine for going to Africa. “I like mixing with other people because I learn a lot,” agreed the General. “If you want to say anything concerning people—stay with them, live with them, it is the only right way of understanding if they are good or bad.” He told me many times, “Nkirote, I like the way you are learning. You are getting your history from the people who can tell an event from memory, and that is good.”

I think a lot of Americans are embarrassed to admit how little they know about African countries. James Olney, in his classic study of African autobiographies, observed that “Africa and the West go on meeting one another all the time and at all sorts of contact points—political, cultural, economic, educational, literary—and, as many people have observed, they go on not understanding one another very well.”

In Zimbabwe, a 19-year-old student asked me, “Oh, you’re from America? My friend and I would like to ask you a few questions about your country.” I said that I would be happy to answer them if I could. “The first question is about day-to-day life in America. We would like to know how often—day-to-day—do you see someone like 50 Cents?”

I thought for a moment. “The rapper?” I said. They nodded enthusiastically. “Uh, never.” They were disappointed and turned to each other to discuss how I must not get out much (which, as per my attendance at Monday Night Bingo, is a legitimate concern). American shows like Cribs, WWE, and Tyra Banks have been exported to Africa. Some people thought I lived next door to Beyonce. In Zambia, a hostel owner asked me, “I met someone from your country recently—his name was Justin, from Colorado. Do you know him?”

On occasions when I was with my Kenyan family, and we happened to pass another white person, I was asked to “greet my sister,” or brother, or whatever the case may have been. By virtue of sharing a skin color with someone else in their country, I must awkwardly acknowledge our camaraderie (even if we don’t speak the same language).

In America, when I tell people that I’m writing the biography of an Independence leader from Kenya, here are a few sample responses that I’ve received (seriously):

“I bet you found some good running partners while you were there.” (While Kenyan runners can come from any ethnic group, most will tell you the best marathoners are the Kalenjin, who live in the western Rift Valley. When I went running in my village, some people shouted after me, “Mzungu, why are you running?” I would say, “I’m just exercising.” Then, their follow-up concern, “Is somebody chasing you?” Where I lived, running for the sake of running was not common.)

“Does he know Obama’s family?” (Obama’s father came from the Luo people, in Western Kenya. The General lives in Meru, in Kenya’s Eastern Province, to the east of Mt. Kenya. The General does not personally know the Obama family.)

“Kenya—now tell me, I think we passed there the other day—is that in Tennessee?” (I don’t think so. Although there is an Italy, Texas, pronounced, “eye-tally.” Maybe I should look into this further before I judge . . . Just checked. There is no Kenya, Tennessee. Judgment confirmed.)

“Did you have to worry about lions?” (Most all lions are now contained in the national parks. I have never seen a lion in Africa.)

“Did you go on safari?” (Yes because “safari” is a Swahili word that just means “a journey.” It has no relation to wild animals, khaki, or Land Rovers. But Western tour operators have re-branded the word to encompass all these things. Juju Jesca, the General’s wife, saw her first elephant with me, when we traveled to the Samburu National Park together. She’s 80-years-old.)

“The Mau Mau, huh? I think I read an anthropology book about that. I hear they were cannibals.” (That’s not right.)

“I have a friend from Nigeria—is that close to Kenya?” (They are on the opposite coasts. Nigeria is in West Africa, Kenya’s in the east.)

Now some people might roll their eyes at these types of questions, not even knowing where to start. But I actually appreciate them, because they’re honest, and they provide me with an opportunity to share my experience and what I know about the place (so keep them coming and keep an open mind).

The General told me about the time his friend, a Kenyan businessman, attended a conference in Mauritius. The General recalled, “He was sitting next to a fellow from a developed country, and the fellow asked him, ‘I have heard that in Kenya, people live in tree huts. Is it true that in your country, everyone lives in the forest, on top of trees?’

“The Kenyan gentleman, my friend, said, ‘True! That is quite true, more than obvious. And it is from a tree that I boarded the airplane which brought me here. We have wonderful trees with airports. And even your ambassador lives in a tree, where his embassy is.’ The other fellow looked at him, and he didn’t speak anymore because he knew how he was answered.”

Yes, Dr. Olney—Africa and the West don’t seem to understand one another. But I find it helps to distinguish between ignorance and apathy. Ignorant people don’t know much about a topic because they haven’t had an opportunity to learn about it. Apathetic people, I believe, have deliberately chosen not to learn because they have no interest in challenging their pre-existing beliefs (= most racists). I was ignorant about Africa. I think a lot of Westerners are ignorant because they haven’t found an appealing way to learn about it, and, if they read newspaper articles, reporters usually confirm their belief system—that Africa’s riddled with genocide, AIDS, military dictatorships, rape, drought, or famine. (I realize that I’m being pretty generous with the ignorant/apathetic divide, but I do think many people are willing and curious to learn; they don’t know how or where to start.)

James Olney suggested African autobiographies as a tool for learning about the continent. He noted, “For the non-African reader, autobiography offers a way of getting inside a world that is inevitably very different from his own.” Autobiographies can teach many lessons, but “the point is that. . .we can hope, given enough human sympathy and imagination, to understand that other environment which was originally foreign and incomprehensible.” What emerges from a person’s life story is “not merely his political or religious or other sensibilities, but his totality as a man [or woman].”

Of course The General History Project’s mission is to preserve oral and cultural histories in developing countries. The General’s story is unfailingly interesting, complicated, and enlightening—and it’s getting preserved. While his life experiences are his alone, the lessons he has to teach extend to colonial struggles and their aftermath across Africa, Asia, and the Americas too.

But I’m also hoping that if I can do justice to the General’s life story, Westerners (and students of African history around the world) will have an opportunity to get to know an old Kenyan man, my adopted juju (grandfather), the General. They can start learning from him, from us, from there.

Here’s hoping I can just get it done . . .

Sending good thoughts – Laura Lee Huttenbach / Nkirote :)

Catching Up On Things

Greetings TGHP supporters!

I know it’s time to update my blog when I get emails that begin, “So are you still writing about the General?” or “Are you alive?” The answer to both of these questions is a resounding YES. And I’m very busy keeping up with both.

I reviewed my last blog entry from (eek!) February and was pleasantly surprised to read how confident, albeit out of breath, I sounded. My form is continually evolving—getting more streamlined, tighter, understandable, better. Most of the improving form is thanks to loads of practice and great coaching. I have a lot of updates for you, so please excuse my bullet-points as I try to make this entry’s length less intimidating.

Here we go:

- A while back, my mentor (“Dr. Ted”) sent me information about a conference on oral history organized by the International Oral Historians Association (IOHA). He encouraged me to submit a proposal to present my work with the General and represent TGHP. I rolled my eyes a little bit, thinking that my mere bachelor’s degree might disqualify me, but I sent in a proposal anyways. It was accepted. (To be continued in a later bullet point…)

- I finished a first draft of the manuscript, the General’s life story, on April 1st, 2010. I had set myself this deadline before realizing it fell on April Fools’ Day. But, wouldn’t you know, I made it.

- On April 2nd, I sent the manuscript to four scholars (professors, writers, historians, super smart people) who agreed to read it and give me their feedback. I vowed not to touch the manuscript until I heard from them, and I caught up on life that I’d neglected for some time. Those six weeks not working on the mss were brutal. I wavered between states of withdrawal, excitement, anxiety, boredom, anticipation, and self-doubt—sometimes, I experienced all these conditions in one day.

- On April 26th, I received the following email from one of my readers: “I’ve read your manuscript. . .My overall impression is very positive. You are certainly fortunate in your choice of subject: King’ua’s life story is profoundly interesting, not only at a personal level but also because of the light it throws on many facets of Kenya’s history and on the way of life and pre- and post-independence experiences of the Meru people; and his way of telling it, no doubt stimulated by your way of eliciting it from him, is always engaging and often engrossing. Congratulations to you both. More later.” Yay.

- In the subsequent weeks, I heard from my other readers, and I received a full report of comments and line edits from the one quoted above. Reactions were generally positive, and they took the potential of my work with the General seriously. They gave me detailed feedback on their impressions and how they think I can improve it. Basically, the consensus was, “It’s good now. It could be excellent.” Or, in Professor Mason’s words, “You should be confident in what you’ve done and humble in what you have left to do.” The critiques were thoughtful, sensitive, thorough, and extensive. This was good. (Read: But I have a lot more work left to do than expected.)

- From the end of May to early-July, I retreated to my workspace in Daytona to begin revising and try to make the manuscript excellent. This, admittedly, was also a pretty tough time. While for the most part, readers did not directly contradict one another, each had something different that he liked, disliked, or wanted to see more of. The scary part had begun: I had to be the “authority” on the material. All of my readers were far more accomplished than me, yet now I was supposed to accept or reject their critiques? Hmm.

And, of course, there was my ever-present awareness that I have no foreseeable income or degree (honorary perhaps?) coming from this work. I’ve fully devoted my last eighteen months to it, and I’m getting close to having a final product, but I’m also squinting at my savings account and watching it trickle down like sand through an hourglass. I’m living in the richest country in the world, yet my biggest donation has come from the General’s fundraising efforts on the ground, in Kenya, from tea farmers (see December blog entry). While I absolutely love this aspect of the project, I’m not gonna lie—I kinda wish a Western friend or fan of TGHP would help me with fundraising. But I’m reminded of the words of my old boss, Director Kenny Leon, when he would say, “You have the right to the work but not the reward.” (He was actually quoting playwright August Wilson, who was actually quoting the Bhagavad Gita.) So, for now, I’m focusing on the work until I can’t afford my weekly ice cream consumption anymore, when I will be forced to find a reward (I’m predicting this time will be at the end of this year.)

- On July 5th, I flew to Prague to attend the IOHA conference. I presented my work (entitled: “In the Shadow of Mount Kenya: Conversations with a Mau Mau”) on July 9th. I spoke for twenty minutes and used audio and video clips as well as pictures from my interviews with the General. I remembered the General’s advice about public speaking:

It is a gift, even, to speak. Not all the people, whether white or brown or red, can speak in front of others. Once somebody stands in a big crowd of people, where he knows these people are of different categories—some are older, some are highly educated—once you come to thinking of that thing, you fail straight away. You get mixed up and once you are nervous, that’s the end of you. You are thinking too much, “How do they see me?”

They are not there to intimidate. Tell them what you prepared to tell them. Forget what they know. Leave it—never think of them. It is you who has the material, and they are listening. Whether some of them [already] know it—that is good. They will hear now the way that you are putting it. If they do not know, then they will hear it first from you. That’s what I think. Those who know it will be shaking [nodding] their heads “Uh-huh!” Others will just be attentive; they want to hear from you because they have never known that before.

I think my speech went well, and the General would have been proud. I met some very interesting people at the conference and learned a lot. I also desperately needed this break from the manuscript. I think just by rubbing elbows with some scholars in this field, I’m feeling just a little more legitimate. I’m going to try and put up excerpts of the speech online. Now that my technical guru, Lindsay Tabas, is back in the country, perhaps she can help me.

-On August 10th, I will retreat to Daytona again to (I hope) finish this wave of revisions. I’m shooting to complete it by the first of October. I will send the manuscript to my mentor and his wife, Dale, for proofing and any final comments. Then I will take my first step into the unchartered territory of getting this thing published. (Cue “Duh-duh-duhhhhh” music.)

So, I think this pretty much catches you up on things right now. I will promise, as I’ve promised many times before, that I will try to keep this blog updated on how everything is going, but, in case I disappear from cyberspace again, you know what I’m doing.

Thank you so much for your support, your positive energy, and your belief in me and the mission of TGHP. I feel you, and I appreciate you.

I’m. Still. Going.

All the best – Laura Lee Huttenbach / Nkirote

Ps – No need to worry about me—I’m still optimistic that this Grand Idea will come to fruition. I’m keeping faith that a good story will find its place, and I know this is a dang good story. In fact, I can’t wait for you to read it. But I just wanted to be honest that the process has not been easy, in case anyone was thinking about writing a book. I would tell you: Absolutely do it if you think it’s a story that deserves to be told. But, it’s a lot of work and kinda hard. The General trusted me with the history of his life, and gosh darn it—I’m making sure that gets told (because it’s extraordinary).

This Thing Called Money

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Dearest TGHP-Supporters,

Please take my delinquency in updating this blog as a good sign. I keep so busy doing the work that I have no time to talk about the work that I’m doing. (But I am sorry, and I will try to inform you better.)

With my writing, I think I’ve hit my stride. I’m writing better and faster, and I’m more comfortable with my form. While I can’t see the finish line yet, I’m no longer doubting its existence. Despite my strenuous training regime, I still feel desperately out of shape. I get up from the table after five hours of writing, and I nearly fall on my face. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath the entire time. I have to gather my thoughts and oxygen before moving too far from the seat.

Because of this demanding exercise, as you may have noticed, I’ve neglected pretty much any TGHP duty that does not include “writing the General’s biography” (this includes fundraising, PR, the blog, and preparing taxes). I hope to emerge, or at least take a break, from my hibernation soon. I’ve set myself a March deadline to submit a first draft of this manuscript to my mentor, my “Mwalimu Ted” (or “Dr. Ted”). I will visit him towards the end of March and revise the work again. Whoever said “Writing is re-writing” is absolutely right.

Here is an excerpt from one of my drafts. I hope you enjoy it.

Cheers – Laura Lee Huttenbach / Nkirote :)

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It was my last week in Kenya. The General had to attend a cooperative meeting, but he didn’t want us to lose the whole day. He picked me up on the way back from town in the afternoon, and we squeezed in a short two-hour session. We drank a soda and ate a banana. Then, with a full mouth, I said, “General, I have a kinda funny question for you today. There’s an American singer, a rapper, who says, ‘Money is Life.’ How would you respond to that?”

This is what the General thought. . .

So in today’s life, it has sense, that money is life. It is life. But in our age time, in our childhood, there was no money, and there was no need for money? Money is good, in some ways, because people are changing bananas for money. I had no bananas, but with money, I can choose the best. Because the one selling the banana needs money. The banana, no matter how sweet, is only there for eating, but it cannot do anything else. So when I have money, I am the controller. All the best things are mine, so money is life. True.

The other day, I went to a conference in Nairobi. It was at a wonderful, good hotel, where all the Presidents stay when they meet in Kenya, called the Safari Park Hotel. You can never enter it unless you belong there. A soda, a small bottle, should be 20 shillings. I went to that hotel with Mwiti and another friend, and we ordered three bottles of soda. I was left to pay the bill, and I gave a hundred shillings. The waiter was there, looking at me and wondering what I was doing. I said, “How much?”

He told me it was 450 shillings. They were 150 shillings per bottle, for these small bottles of soda—the very ones that you buy for twenty shillings outside. I gave the man an amount of 500 shillings. So, I thought: What is being sold there is not soda, but the class of the people who are supposed to go there.

The people who want to eat inside there do not want to be disturbed by common people. They want to stay there comfortably. I think it’s supposed to be like Norfolk [former white-only hotel] going there. That’s for people who have lots of money and want to display it. They put the cost, the price, so high that they don’t have to mix with you. They want to see their class, how many there are, and then they become friends.

They have clubs, like the Nairobi Club, which you cannot even take food there or get a beer unless you are a member of that club. To become a member, you have to produce a lot of [credit and bank] cards, to show where you get all your money and which class you are in and how much you earn. You have to pay dues to be a member there which most people cannot afford.

All over the world, money has become life. It is true, even in America—I’ve gone out and noticed this clearly. There are some places and some hotels which I will never dare to go there to have lunch because the price that is put there is very high. That’s one class.

There is another one where I feel that I should not go because I don’t want to have that kind of very typical food. I don’t want to eat githere [mashed maize and beans], so I go in another class, where I will never ask how much do you charge, because I know the menu. I know this will be not more than 500 shillings, and I will take lunch in that way. I don’t complicate myself with hard things that I cannot afford. Some people do it, but I don’t. I do what I am able to.

That place, where I’ve said I will take that lunch, if I’m with my friend, and I know he doesn’t have cash, it is bad, because I’m forcing him to go in a class where he or she won’t be able to meet the cost of the lunch. Because of this thing called money, and the education and the employment, people are graded automatically, whether white or not.

It Takes a Village

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The General History Project is turning every stereotype of African charities on its head. I’m thrilled to report that The General has just organized the most successful fundraiser for the organization—and here’s the kicker—in Kenya, with his fellow tea farmers.

I’ve struggled to get funding. When The General heard that I was running out of money, he offered to organize a harambee, Swahili for “fundraiser” or “self-help.” The General just got electricity for the first time two months ago. He does not have indoor plumbing. At his church, people bring chickens and vegetables for their offerings. This is where The General comes from, but he is a successful tea farmer who founded a thriving farmers’ cooperative.

On November 28th, he gathered together villagers, farmers, family members, churchgoers, politicians, cooperative members, and teachers. He explained how “their daughter” (me) was working to record their history and how you can’t survive in America without money—i.e., we don’t have farms to feed from, so we have to buy food. He said, “Our daughter needs our help to finish this project.” For just $20/day. . .

By December 17th, all contribution pledges had been collected. The General consulted his IT person at the cooperative headquarters to see how he could send me the money they had raised. I received an email that day which said, “We had quite a colorful harambee, and we have wired you the money. Please go to a dispensary as soon as possible to collect what we have raised.” They provided instructions and the reference number for the transaction.

On Sunday December 20th, I walked in to the CVS drugstore and asked the employee at the front where I could find the Moneygram center. She took me to a red phone and said, “You are sending, correct?”

I said, “No, I’m receiving.”

She looked me up and down, from my tennis shoes up my dark denim jeans, to my yellow long-sleeved shirt and brown puffy vest, to my smiling white face and blonde hair. “You’re receiving money?” she said. “From where?”

“Africa.” I could tell she wanted more information, but she didn’t ask.

“Well, there’s the phone. I think they’ll tell you what to do.” She walked away shaking her head. I picked up the phone. An automated teller asked me to enter my reference number and the amount of money I was expecting.

I had no idea. I would’ve been ecstatic with $30, because I knew all their dollars were hard earned. I pushed “2-0-0,” thinking that was the best-case scenario. The automated teller said, “Please wait while we connect you to a representative.”

Seconds later, a representative confirmed my name, my reference number, and the sender’s code. Then she said, “I’m sorry, Ma’am, the location where you are does not dispense amounts over $2000.”

I said, “Okay, that’s fine, no problem.”

“Uh, actually it is a problem, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to another location. Wal-Mart seems to be closest.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Are you telling me that the amount I’m collecting exceeds $2000?”

“Yes.”

“How much is it?!”

“For security purposes, I cannot reveal that information. I can only confirm an amount.”

“Okay, is it greater than $2500?”

“Yes, and that is all I can tell you.”

“Oh my goodness.” That was more than Kenya’s per capita GDP.

She said, “Ma’am?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. Thank you. I’ll go to Wal-Mart.”

I walked out the door towards my car in a daze. My largest donation to date had been $1000, from a very close personal contact, but most were around $50. Nobody had offered to hold a fundraiser for me or my organization in America, and donations were even tax-deductible. I was living in the richest country in the world with the richest people surrounding me, and I was about to drive to Walmart to collect a wired donation exceeding $2500 raised by the efforts of rural Kenyan tea farmers.

I went to the money center at Walmart, and I asked the lady at customer service how to use Moneygram. She pointed to the forms at the opposite end of the counter and said to get the green sender’s form. I walked over and picked up the form. “Oh, this is for sending money. I’m actually receiving.”

This lady also looked surprised. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand. If you’re receiving, you need the purple form.”

I picked up the purple form and went back to her register. I filled it out, and she entered the information in her computer, doing a double take as she read ‘Kenya’ as the sender’s origin. Then, she wrote the amount I was to receive. The General and his village had raised two thousand, five hundred, twenty-seven dollars and fifty-four cents. $2,527.54. I could not believe it. She said, “And the message they sent with it is ‘Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, letter will follow.’” I nodded as tears welled up in my eyes.

There, in the Supercenter of American holiday consumerism, I watched the Walmart customer service representative count out twenty-five hundred dollars in cash, sent to me directly from Kenya. It occurred to me that I, a 27-year-old Atlanta native, was being sponsored by an African village to write The General’s biography. In what strange world does this happen?

Well, it turns out it’s in this world, and these countries. While not the conventional model of nonprofit fundraising, the generosity of these Africans is keeping me and The General History Project afloat this holiday season. I founded TGHP on the principle of trying to help people in the world learn from and understand one another. I couldn’t ask for a better place to start the New Year.

Wishing all of you a very happy holidays. I know my Christmas just got a lot Merrier.

All the best – Laura Lee P. Huttenbach (“Nkirote”)

***Please remember The General History Project in your (tax-deductible) holiday donations this year. If you know anyone interested in matching the General’s efforts, please contact me.***

In case you don’t know, The General History Project seeks to record oral and cultural histories in places where people don’t have the resources to do it on their own. In March, I traveled to the Eastern Province of Kenya to interview “The General,” an 87-year old man who fought for Kenyan independence in the 1950s as a Mau Mau General. He is still Chairman of the South Imenti Tea SACCO and also Chairman of Njuri Ncheke, the indigenous governing council of elders. Currently, I’m writing his biography and hope to share his life and wisdom with a greater audience. This will be the first of many stories we tell, I hope.

The General History Project, Inc. is 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization.