After being in Kenya for almost a month, I’ve started to appreciate many appliances and luxuries I have in the States. I could write a list of all of them but that’s not what this article is about. This article is focused on a single appliance I’ve taken for granted my entire life: the washing machine.

Have you ever stopped to think about how people used to wash clothes before the invention of the washing machine? I hadn’t either until the day I washed my clothes the way Kenyans wash their clothes… by hand.

Almost all laundry in Kenya is done by hand.

The day after going on a twelve hour, 33 mile hike through the Kenyan bush with 50 Kenyan university graduates, I saw my friend Ken bending over two buckets of water and rubbing furiously. I thought he was playing with bubbles or something until I came up to him to see what he was doing. He wasn’t playing around with bubbles, he was doing his laundry.

All of a sudden I was struck with something I had seen the day before on our hike…

We were two hours into our hike when we came upon a large river. Micho, one of my fellow Tanari Trust staff members, led the university graduates through a session of reflection on their lives since graduation. Sitting by the river, the college grads reflected deeply.

Since I haven’t graduated from college yet, I decided to take pictures of the river and the local people around it instead. There were two men pulling ferry boats across the river and a dozen boys were swimming and wrestling in the water.

The lady I saw washing her family's clothes in the river.

Once the time of reflection was done, we got on the ferry boats. As we were boarding I saw a lady washing her clothes in the river. I didn’t think too much of her then but it was her image that hit me as I watched Ken wash his clothes.

Back at camp the following day, I thought about what I’d seen and asked Ken if he’d teach me to wash my laundry like a Kenyan. He laughed and started to instruct me in the fine art of washing clothes by hand.

As I watched him soak his clothes, then furiously scrub them against each other, I laughed at how easy this whole process was! He rinsed the soapy, clean clothes in the second bucket and I knew I could do this without a second thought.

Full of self-confidence, I brought my own clothes to be washed.

Ken hung his laundry on the clothesline as I fetched clean water for the two buckets. He advised me to soak my two shirts and two pairs of socks in the detergent since they were covered in dust and dirt from the hike. I didn’t of course. I mean, why wait?

My shirts and socks after washing them by hand...

I rubbed the shirts against each other for about five minutes each before the dirt came out. I looked to Ken for praise at my ability to wash my shirts and he told me to “wait for my socks” followed by a hearty laugh.

I started to rub the first sock but nothing happened. So I rubbed harder and harder until I started to see a difference. I was about to laugh at Ken’s warning when the pain hit me. I looked at my knuckles and saw they were raw from rubbing the socks and one or two were starting to bleed. The bleach in the bucket made my knuckles burn. I was not happy.

I sat in the dirt and stared at the redness and blood coming from my knuckles and wondered how anybody could consider doing this! I had only washed two shirts and a tenth of a sock and I wanted nothing more than to never have to wash any clothes ever again!

It was then that I made the connection to the Kenyan woman from the day before. I looked at the pictures I had taken of her and I was baffled at the amount of clothes she had to wash! Why do people do this to themselves?

As I thought about this image of this bush woman, the answer slowly came to me: she does this because there is no other way to wash those clothes. She spends countless hours bent over that same river, scrubbing every inch of every piece of clothing because she doesn’t have some fancy washing machine to do it for her. She endures the pain of raw and bleeding knuckles on a continual basis so her family can have clean clothes.

As you can see, I’m not a pro at washing my clothes by hand…yet.

I took Ken’s advice and let my socks soak for an hour in a bucket of water and detergent before making another go at them. As my knuckles dripped blood into the bucket, I thought of the lady from the river.

I finished that first sock after twenty minutes of painful scrubbing. An hour later, I had finished the other three.

Washing my bloody knuckles under a water spout, I couldn’t help but smile at the feeble kinship I felt with the woman from the river. I had caught a brief glimpse into the pain and misery she felt every time she goes down to the river to wash her family’s clothes.

After all the pain I endured to be like Ken and the bush lady, I was proud of my small accomplishment and more appreciative of something so simple as a washing machine. Under the harsh sun, I hung-up my clean clothes on the drying line and prayed for a day when the bush lady could give her bloody knuckles a rest.

Tanari Trust is part of Tanari International, an organization focused on helping all ages of people successfully move through “transition” periods, also known as “rites of passage.” I’m working mostly with their teenage and adolescent programs by interviewing past participants and their parents.

In order to better understand their experience with their rites of passage courses, the folks at Tanari decided it would be best if I visited the camps where courses are held. When they told me I was going out into the Kenyan bush for multiple days at a time for camping and intense hiking, I was so excited!

After flying down the road in a cramped matatu for an hour (an epic tale in itself), my two Tanari coworkers, Micho and Ken, and I unloaded our food supplies and were quickly left in a cloud of dust by the insane driver.

After getting off the matatu, we were in the middle of nowhere!

As the dust settled, I was hit with the stench of old fish and musty sweat. I was in middle of nowhere surrounded by rural Kenyans trying to sell fresh fruit and not-so-fresh fish to passing traffic. I immediately started to question my previous excitement for “going camping in the bush.”

Micho and Ken made their way over to one of the stands and bartered with toothless woman for several mangoes and oranges. We paid 80 shillings for three freshly picked mangoes and about a dozen fresh oranges.

I quickly did the math and realized we paid just a little over $1 for all of it! Based on how much mangoes cost in the States, I thought it was a steal, but Ken told me we should have only paid half. Apparently these people need the money or else they won’t survive the bad dry season we were currently experiencing.

Two Kenyan boys passing us on the way to Camp Malta.

I thought about this as we started to climb the path up to Camp Malta. I continued to ponder it for a good half hour and we still weren’t up the path. After an hour of hiking up the path, I asked we were close to the camp. The response was a round of laughter from Ken and Micho and joking questions about whether I was going to be able to finish the “short” hike we had planned for the next day.

They didn’t think a mzungu (Swahili for “white person”) from the States could handle a hike through the bush. I knew I had to prove them wrong and break down the stereotypes of mzungus they obviously had. I told them I’d finish the hike with ease and even carry their exhausted selves back to their moms. This elicited cackles of laughter from my coworkers as we walked into Camp Malta.

The spartan appearance of the camp would probably make most Americans want to go home. The main meeting structures lack walls and most of the toilets are literally a hole in the ground… camping in its purest form (Thankfully, I’ve been camping with my dad since I was a wee lad, so the rustic nature of the camp actually excited me!).

One of my artsy pics!

After seeing the camp, we went on a quick hike down to the dam to settle our minds from the noise and traffic of Nairobi. Ken and Micho meditated and prayed, but I was too excited to be out in the bush. I spent the whole time jumping from rock to rock trying to take artsy pictures with my camera.

When dinner time came around, I was surprised and a little disappointed that my first bush meal was almost identical to most meals I’ve had in Nairobi. But my disappointment melted away with the pure taste and flavor of the dessert we had: fresh mango.

This mango was, and is, like no other fruit I’ve ever had in my entire life! I can’t even put the experience into words… Next time you are in the Kenyan bush, you’ve got to try the mangoes for yourself!

Right after dinner, we headed to bed. It was only 8 PM but I didn’t argue at all because of Ken’s stories from last year’s hike. Apparently, Ken and a group of 40 adolescents got lost and ended up hiking for 14 hours in the rain!

Before going to sleep, Ken joked that it was probably going to rain tomorrow and that he didn’t really know the area too well. Of course, this didn’t worry me at all. I mean, I wrote a small “will” and a “goodbye letter” in my journal that night in case we didn’t make it back, but yeah. I wasn’t worried.

One of the buildings at Camp Malta.

After a quick breakfast at 6am, the sun rose from behind a mountain range and we started our hike. We walked for about 30 minutes before coming to a river. Ken, Wanjau (Camp Malta’s caretaker) and I decided to take off our shoes and wade across. Micho decided to try jumping the river instead. Let’s just say that his attempt ended with the rest of us doubled over in laughter and Micho furious at his wet shoes and clothes…

After the creek, we stopped at a tiny village to talk to the local chieftain. We needed to ask him if we could use some of his village’s land for a camping site in a few weeks. He graciously agreed and bid us farewell as we left.

I asked many questions about the relevance of village chiefs and learned about the social hierarchy of the bush. The chiefs are consulted on nearly all matters regarding their land are always the first ones to be approached by outsiders, local police, and local politicians. Even in the 21^st century, the chief is still central to all aspects of bush life.

The rest of the day was spent mapping out hiking routes and exchanging stories. I told my companions stories and tales from my life. At other times I listened as Wanjau told stories from his own life in Swahili. Listening to his stories may have been one of the highlights of my trip to Camp Malta. Even though I didn’t understand a word of what Wanjau was saying, I still felt the wisdom in stories and enjoyed laughing with my Kenyan companions.

After hiking for more than four hours, we started to head back to the camp. That’s when I realized that I had survived the hike! I knew I could and I did!

The best avacados in the world!

I smiled victoriously to myself and that’s when Ken dropped a bomb on me. When we are with groups of campers, we take them on hikes that last 8-10 hours! I couldn’t help but laugh, realizing just how tired I was from our “short” hike.

As we walked through the last bit of farmland towards Camp Malta, I told Micho how much I love fresh fruit like the mango we had the night before. He ended up buying avocados from a lady who had picked them that morning. As with the mango, I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing they were!

As we returned to dusty and polluted Nairobi, I thought about how awesome it was to get an experience like that. A couple of years ago I never would have thought I’d be able to do something as unique and outlandish as hiking around rural Kenya, rubbing shoulders with a local chieftain and eating some of the freshest foods on Earth, but there I was… smack in the middle of Camp Malta.

It was an experience I won’t soon forget…

Ok, picture the last movie you watched that was set in the U.S. Got one? Keep thinking…make sure it’s a good one! The last movie I watched is Taken.

Yes, I know most of the movie is set in Europe but the first part of the movie occurs in an extremely rich part of California. Take this image – exotic cars, mansions, expensive jewelry, and designer clothes – and pretend that is the only thing you know about America. You now have the same image of America as Emily, my host family’s temporary house help.

Emily is a teenage girl from Kibera Slum. Her English is decent by American and Kenyan standards but it is exceptional if you factor in that she only finished the 4^th grade at a school in the slum!

After working a nine hour day at the Tanari Trust office, I usually come back to my host home, change out of my work clothes, and play with my host family’s five year old daughter and one year old son (funny side note: the son is very young and doesn’t have much experience with white people. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a ghost or something by the way he screams when I try to pick him up).

During these times, amidst a screaming baby and a little girl vying for our attention, Emily and I have had a few conversations that have changed both of our world views.

At first, our conversations were surface level topics such as “Do you like Kenyan food?” or “What’s your family like?” After a couple conversations with Emily, however, we got to the point where we were talking about poverty, corruption, travel, and our thoughts on each other’s countries.

Emily, our house-help.

One evening, Emily was asking about “the States” (which is what everyone else in the world calls our country) and mentioned how everyone in America is rich and there is no poverty. I wanted to launch into a massive tirade about how “America has poor people too!” but decided to ask her about what she based these opinions on.

She told me she had “seen American wealth in the movies and on television shows”. I was taken aback at how easily she interprets some movie as the facts about my country!

I wrote about Emily’s comments in my journal but didn’t think anything of it until later on when she asked if there were poor people in America. I told her stories from the past two years about my interactions with homeless people in D.C., where I go to university, and her eyes kept getting bigger and bigger. She kept asking more and more questions.

Emily’s questions started to get frantic as she discovered the plight of the homeless in D.C.. She couldn’t fathom that everyone in America didn’t have a personal chef to cater to their diets. She had no concept of the thousands living on the streets of America’s capital city and surviving only because of the good graces of soup kitchens and churches!

Emily’s view of the States changed radically after those conversations and I felt pretty good about myself for being “the provider of information”. It wasn’t until later that I realized I had formed my views on other countries in the exact same way.

Looking back at a few of my journal entries from 2005, when I went to Kenya with the Grace Community Church High School Ministry, I realized how much my view of Kenya had been influenced by movies and such. One entry states,

My old perspective on Kenya. A land of poverty, decay and definitely NOT of wealth!

I can’t believe I’m actually in Africa…yet, I don’t feel like I’m in Kenya. I’m sitting on my queen-sized bed in a room that’s bigger than my room at home! I have my own bathroom with a shower that instantly shoots out hot water! Where are the mud huts and toilets? I thought I’d have to be more worried about a lion jumping out and eating me than having my wallet stolen by slum children! Where is the desert and the jungle and the adventure like in the movies!?!

I’ve come a long way since that journal entry but I find that I still have some preconceived notions about Kenya…

When we first arrived in Kenya this time, we drove past a beautiful, pristine golf course. I was so bewildered at seeing a golf course in Kenya, that I wrote in my journal that evening, “How can there be golf courses here! That is such a western luxury for a country that is drowning in poverty and corruption!” We found out later that there are over eight different golf courses in the city of Nairobi alone! Eight!

Some upscale apartments near my host home. Like the bank in the main article picture above, it seems oddly out of place.

Another experience occurred when my host family took me to an Italian restaurant that could have rivaled most restaurants in Italy! Even the head chef was Italian! How could there be such a great Italian place in Africa?

As I see more and more things that shake my view of Kenya, I feel myself understanding how easily it was for Emily to make so many preconceived notions about the States. Humans are naturally wired to develop a perception on every little thing in order to understand the world around them and even more so to help them deal with the unknowns in the world.

On my walk home from work today, I walked past a Shell Gas Station, a man with no arms and no legs, a luxury apartment complex (boasting five bedrooms), and a rickety cart selling roasted maize. Yes, there is poverty and decay in Kenya, but there is also a lot of wealth.

I thought about my past notions of Africa and my conversations with Emily about her views on America. I thought about all the movies and books I had taken as pure fact and, just like Emily, unconsciously turned them into my naïve worldview.

It makes me think. With Emily so unaware of the realities of life in “the States,” how little do I understand the world?

I mean, now that I know there are golf courses in Nairobi, I wonder… what else has Hollywood forgotten to tell me?

After visiting the slum I came away with the realization that, even though these kids live in abject poverty, they are still some of the happiest children I’ve ever seen.

Although I wrote all the captions, the initials after each indicate who took the picture…

JS – Jessica Shewan
SQ – Scott Quigley
CS – Christine Sullivan
BR – Barry Rodriguez