"Got Milk?"

It has been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG week. Possibly the longest since I got off that plane at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on the evening of June 26th, 2008.

Let's review. Last Sunday, I was still quite jarred by the sad demise of Michael Jackson. I don't know why I hate to admit that, but I do. I guess it's because that as much death as I've encountered in my own family in recent years, why on Earth was I so upset about Michael??? Eventually, I figured out the answer. He was 50, which I'll be in a coupla years. And say what you want about him, but Michael Jackson died as the legal, emotional (biological status to be determined) father of three children. The cynic in my soul couldn't help musing that if a withered, pill popping, bizarre-acting, self-mutilated androgyne can be, by all accounts, a really good parent,

"I coulda been a contender."

That's the intensely wistful spirit I carried into this this past week, which cast a Schleprock-style cloud over everything. So when confirmation of Kenya's first Swine flu case hit on Monday, I was probably in the worst mood I've been in since I got here, too. Somehow, I was able to suck it up long enough to help out with the Daily Nation's coverage, which turned out to be the best of all local papers.

Incidentally, the experience was the perfect bookend to my first year, and gave me some great feedback about what the heck difference it's made that I came to Nairobi. First, in the planning meeting right after news broke, I ran my mouth so much, it's a wonder they didn't have me taken out back and horsewhipped for insubordination! I mean, I was interrupting people, gently correcting, and making suggestions like I was in charge of the whole damn paper! Thinking back to July 4th, 2008, the day I started working at Nation Centre, I realized that the only reason male editors were tolerating this kind of behavior from a woman is because I had proven myself over the past year. I had worked hard to help individual reporters improve their skills, and I had made some helpful, if pointed, critiques of their coverage of health issues which were actually taken to heart.

That's why I was so thrilled to get the following email from Nation Media Group's Managing Editor, Joseph Odindo:

"Hi Rachel,

There could not have been better proof of your contribution to improving the Nation's ability to cover science than our response to the Swine Flu story. We were able to marshall FOUR science writers, two of whom were a direct product of your mentorship. In the past we would have been lucky to have just two. Thanks, Rachel, and let's keep push. JO

Bottom line, I had behaved like a grown-assed woman who knows her shit and ain't scared to show it. As an American woman, I took that kind of behavior for granted long before I started coming to Africa, so it's hard to explain what it's like coming into an environment where, at least initially, you are likely to catch a colonial-style beatdown for acting that way.

That's just one example of the past week's challenges. Another major one was the fact that the trackball on my BlackBerry Bold 9000 got jammed on Tuesday, which means I couldn't scroll down, which means that about 90 percent of the reason I bought the damned phone was rendered null and void. It is ASTONISHING how quickly you start to depend on technology--or more accurately, how soon you start to take it for granted. Especially since voice phone and Internet service here has gotten so dicey lately, you at least want the ability to send text messages. Oh, and take pictures when things start catching on fire, or when The Revolution jumps off, 'cuz it sure as hell ain't gon' be televised up in THIS joint.

Anyway, after four days of begging, pleading, cussing and threatening a Safaricom retail manager, I began descending into a pit of despair so deep, I scared myself. And that was mostly because by Friday afternoon, it dawned on me that I was about to spend the third consecutive Fourth of July outside of the US, alone, with a jacked up phone. Even if I wanted to spend a few weeks' salary calling friends and family back home, I couldn't. And you can't beg borrow or steal a decent hot dog anywhere on the entire continent of Africa, and there are no fireworks, or barbecue, and...

"WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING OVER HERE??? WHY DO I KEEP ISOLATING MYSELF FROM EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING THAT PROVIDES ME THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF COMFORT AND JOY???"

The good news is that the Safaricom manager finally took my thinly-veiled threats seriously, and I got a call at around 6:15 on Friday evening, just as I was leaving Nation Centre. It was from a repair technician who was waiting for me in front of the building. The kid snatched the phone and darted off, and for a second I just stood there thinking, "Great! It figures. I've just been phone-jacked in the middle of a crowded street." But 20 minutes later he came back, and the jammed phone trackball had been replaced.

I've spent most of the weekend working on a year-end report, which is due on Monday. Gratefully, I didn't have as much time to dwell on yet another lonely Independence Day as I might have. And then yesterday afternoon, I got an email from Pius Sawa, the young man I wrote about when I was in Kampala a few weeks ago. He's one of my former Internews Gulu trainees, whom I'd asked to help me with the Kampala radio workshop I'd led.

Well, Pius was such a hit in Kampala, I asked him to come and help me lead a similar workshop in Nairobi at the end of the month. He graciously accepted the invitation, in a typically African way:

"Dear Racheal,

"It gives me pride seeing how you are lifting me on your back as your own child you groomed, mentored and brought up. To me i feel obliged that through your motherly care, i can have a smile on my face as i infuse in others that dose of the breast milk you fed me on in the name of radio feature production. Long live mum."

Okay, I'd be lying if I denied that the "breast milk" reference didn't creep me the fuck out at first. But then I realized this was Pius' heartfelt way of communicating the full impact I'd had on his career, in a way that touched me deeply.

So here's the deal. Some people give birth. Some people adopt. Some people rent-a-womb and a coupla petri dishes. And then some of us travel halfway around the world to infuse a spirit of sorts into the minds of young people that might eventually give them a new vision of themselves and their futures.


I've said it before and I'll say it again...if this is the only kind of "mothering" I was meant to do, I can live with that. But I can't help admitting that I hope to spend next July 4th on American soil, sucking down some cold brews and eating a damned hot dog drenched in barbecue sauce and watching some fireworks. Somehow, I gotta figure out a way to do both things.