Introduction

1) Martin Luther King’s Dream Had One Little Hitch: Tolerance Isn’t All That It’s Cracked Up to Be (This post is quite long so get yourself something to drink before you read it)

Take It Away Gal

Mwangi put me on the spot  and asked me to do a guest post about being an incarnate immigrant Kenyan. Being quite the emotional gal (there goes all the male readers lol), I’ve chosen to write a little about the emotional stuff, because I believe that knowing of the possibility of experiencing these emotions, saves one a lot of energy…

The way I see it, when one expects to experience something, one doesn’t usually expend energy fighting the experience…but deals with the situation coming from a place of apparent preparedness…because one expected it. Makes for smoother sailing, me thinks 

I know I didn’t expect to experience the loneliness.

Nothing/ Nobody had prepared me for being in a new place with no friends. NOTHING! And that’s just the easy part. The kind of loneliness I experienced in my first few years abroad was unnerving, terrifying, tiring.

I was not at all prepared for moving away from people who’ve known me since I was in nappies. People who I’d gone to kindergarten with and friends I’d met on the first day of primary school and then was learning how to be a teenage adult with. People I had a “secret” language and personal history with. People I could tell funny stories about, even though everyone’s heard them a trillion times, and they could and would do the same with me. All this vanished with one “little” plane ride that I didn’t even notice, because I slept all the way to Heathrow. Vupti! And it was gone! Just like that. And I had no idea.

I remember the first time I met a long time friend and she laughingly said “OMG gal, that is So you”, to something inane I had done, I almost fell to knees crying, thinking “Oh my God, IT IS ME!, and she should know, she’s known me since I was 6!” Moving to the UK/DK (United Kingdom and Denmark) meant that I was surrounded by lots of lovely friendly people who knew naught/zero/zilch about me, and that somehow made/makes for loneliness.

I never underestimate the power of shared history anymore

We recognize and celebrate ourselves in it…its part of what shapes who we are…and one of the easiest ways to make friends…i.e. creating a shared history.

The move from the comfort of a Kenya whose systems; political, cultural and social, I knew and were a natural part of me, knocked me off my saddle sideways and left me reeling. The funniest part about it, is that I expected to fit right in pronto, first in the UK (not too bad but still) and then quite erroneously, in Denmark. I now know that, that little expectation can make a move to a new place a very horrendous one.

I now know to expect to NOT fit in, in a way that’s different from experiencing new things in Kenya, I expect to work at fitting in, I expect to stick out like a sore thumb and feel like one, if only for a while, but sometimes always, and many years down the road, I have accepted this as part of my life as an immigrant. I know to expect to feel the loneliness, in one form or another.It’s ok, it doesn’t bite…that much 

Gal Africana,

from a search for sanity

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I recently read about the heart breaking, raw reaction that Kelly had to having to leave Kenya. That mixed in with some discussions I had with some friends got me thinking about what it was like when I had to say goodbye to Africa.

Do You Know What My Reaction Was?

Nothing! This post will be short because I felt nothing about leaving home. I wouldn’t miss anyone or anything.The only thing I felt was excited because I was going to a new place that was supposedly better than where I was coming from. I was also feeling pretty good because Australia also promised this wanna-be Mandingo his girls.

Ironically…..

My apathy eventually bit me in the butt and within six months I was missing all my family and friends. I was writing them all emotional deep letters expressing how much I loved and missed them. I was on the phone with my cousin so much the authorities must have thought we were plotting a jewel heist.

I wrote this post because I am curious. What was it like for you, when you had to say goodbye? Leave a comment below and let me know.

Before I leave though……

If Denzel Got Rejected What Hope Is There?

I have just watched an interview with Denzel Washington where he said that when he first proposed to his wife over the phone…..she said NO! If Mr. Mo’ Better got rejected, that evokes two feelings in me:

a) For real, no a lot of the time is just, not yet.

b) If John Q couldn’t seal the deal with his first proposal, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Rewind Selector

Until then, please enjoy Malaika one more time.

Why? Because they are that good!

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

“So where’s home?” Continued from yesterday’s conversation about “What recharges you?”

We recently had a visit from an English woman who had grown up in Kenya. The part of the conversation that resonated with me the most was when she asked:

“You have been here six years. Do you feel like this is your home yet? My boys (she had sons who had grown up in Kenya) have been here quite a long while but still consider Kenya home.”

Interesting, I thought. Home! Home! Home! Let’s talk about that place, where whether you go East or West is best.

What Do I Mean By Home?

Now for the sake of clarity let me be clear on what I mean by the word home. By home, I am not referring to the physical structure that protects you from wind, hail and stalkers. Rather I am referring to that place that makes you feel one of or a combination of the following:

a) Safe

b) Comfortable

c) Well protected

d) Loved

e) Free to be yourself.

After all, aren’t the above what most of us feel when we remember home. After a long, hard, scary day at work, we trudge home through the wind and rain so that we can get to that warm place where we can take off our shoes, unwind and just be. This place may not even be your residential address. It may be your local church or bible study group. It may be your local bar or hangout. It may even be your spouses home. Wherever that place is, where your troubles melt away and you feel most at peace, least on edge: THAT’S HOME!

Home Away From Home

So maybe, you flew out ‘because everyone else is doing it’. Maybe you flew out because you could no longer stay home. Maybe you flew out pursuing a job. Maybe your parents surprised you with some money, some air tickets and a letter from a University that has a weird sounding name. However, you left Mama Africa and you are now abroad ( by the way, if you are, welcome, from a diaspora veteran). You have now been ripped away from that place you call home and are now all alone in this foreign land with foreign places, foreign languages and foreign ideas about where home is. How exactly can you get back home in the middle of this land far far away. Simple: Recreate your home.

What Makes Your Home a Home

I have two types of home. My first home is my house. Here I feel safe in the solitude that is provided to me by quiet nights. It is in this home that I do all my heavy mental work. It is here that I write this blog, study, learn and plan how I will become a better human being every single night.

My second home is anything that has to do with making people feel something. You need someone to speak in public, I’m there as long as I can make the audience feel something. You need someone to have a breezy conversation with, am there as long as you laugh.

My first home is home because I feel safe and protected within it and undisturbed and free to explore under the cover of night. My second home is home because I feed off energy from people. Believe it or not, when someone likes me, the high I get from that can keep me going for days on end. I feel safe in the fact that I can actually connect with my fellow human being because the way I see it, if you can connect with people, regardless of where you are and how poor you are, you will be better than you would be otherwise.

This Knowledge is Critical

Basically the reason I told that story is so that you have a frame of reference when I ask you, what make your home feel like home? What type of environment do you need in order for you to feel safe, protected and/or loved? Do you need a place where you feel connected to another person? Do you need a place where you can have deep, intimate conversation? Do you need a place where you can just think? Do you need a place where you can let your aggression lose? Do you need some quiet time? Do you need a place where you feel in control?

When you know what type of place feels like home, you are now equipped to begin seeking it out. The diaspora may be lacking in a lot of things, but not in places to go and things to do. Armed with the knowledge of what your home should be like, you can begin to go exploring different places all searching for that home.

As I have said in previous posts, once you find your home, once you find that place where you can just be, there is nothing quite like it.

What’s Your Perception of the Diaspora

A second element to this discussion is how do you perceive your country of immigration as a whole. In general, there are three ways you can look at your new country.

1) Home

2) Transition point between two homes

3) A Place that Just Isn’t Home

Though I have been here close to six years, this place feels like a transition point between two homes. It feels as though I was put here to learn and grow so that I could go back to my place of birth, aka sweet Mama Africa. If you feel like I do, then it brings greater purpose into everyday existence abroad. After all, you must get ready, prepare and learn so that you can seek out and/or build and then maintain your home once you have left the transition point you are currently in. So, look at yourself like one of those samurais in a Jet Li movie that has been banished from home and needs to train for years before returning home to as the greatest samurai ever who will save the kingdom from attack (I know Jet Li is Chinese and the Samurai tradition is Japanese but you get my point………)

If you feel like the diaspora is home, then share with your fellow immigrants how you managed to fit into a place that at times can feel like a vast wasteland. There are a lot of people who need help figuring out just what to make of this place. Hell, even I would love to hear it. You are already way ahead of the curve. Please drag the rest of us along.

Finally, if this place doesn’t feel like home at all, then read the preceding sections of this post and go about creating semi-homes here in the diaspora. As soon as possible work on finding or creating that place of quiet strength, comfort and stability. Maybe start hanging around solid, stable family people who shy away from drama. Maybe find a job in your local place of worship. Maybe find work with the elderly or the youth, where there is little threat to you. Whatever you need, seek it out and once you have found it embrace it.

We All Need Homes

After all, we all need homes. We all get tired and we all need to recharge. So please don’t take this gift from yourself. Leave a comment or get in touch with me to let me know what’s happening.

Now go home,

Mwangi

Hey hey hey,

Sorry, I have been a little bit slack over the last week in terms of blogging. A truly great lady passed away last week and I am working on an article to remember her amongst other great things so I have been kinda gone but this blog is far from forgotten.

Anyway, I am a member of the Melbourne Personal Growth Meetup Group and tomorrow they will be having a meetup that I am extraordinarily interested in but will be unable to attend due to pre-set plans with the love sickness. Anyway, I just had a quick look at a free PDF report that the man presenting put out and I thought I would share it with y’all and get your thoughts. So read through it (it is a PDF file and to read it, you need Adobe Reader) and leave some comments or email me letting me know what you think of it.

Mistakes that Migrants and Overseas Students Make(FREE PDF REPORT)

I just read an article from the White Africans on mobile phones in Africa and one idea that has absolutely struck a chord with me is paying for things with mobile credit:

This means instead of having to pay for bus rides with money you can simply transfer credit from your phone to the driver or conductor’s phone. After all, isn’t it simply transferring value you already possess to someone else who may need that value in exchange for something you want.

To me, this is absolutely brilliant innovation. According to this post, also from the White African, mobile phones have absolutely swamped Africa. Both my grandparents, even without full, constant access to electricity own mobile phones. Apparently in countries like South Africa there are more mobile phones in rotation than there are people. To say that mobile phones are quintessential in Africa at the moment is like saying that soccer is just another sport, i.e. a gross understatement. If we were to sit down and think about how we can use this knowledge to improve our local economies, I have a hunch the effects could be continent-shattering. Just a thought

I am starting to feel like my blog is redundant when I read articles such as these from M that pretty much say exactly what I want to say, exactly the way I want to say it

Finally (huh, I guess I did have something to say today, I thought this post would be way shorter), reading this poem from Mshairi got me to thinking about the education system and so this is what I had to say after reading the poem:

I think this can act as a metaphor for our entire education system not only in Kenya and Africa but throughout the world. We teach and learn logarithms, fractions and about latent heat but there are no classes on how to have ideal relationships, or in Africa courses on how to survive when you can’t earn money. Education should be a reflection of society’s necessities. What we have at the moment is a society where education is a neccesity no matter how vacuous it is.

Be blessed&bless othaz,

Mwangi