Just One More.....

Er, Um.....

"Should a sports writer who looks like Fat Albert's short-yellow-school bus-ridin' younger brother REALLY be criticizing Serena Williams for having a butt like an overstuffed pumpkin?"

"Seriously?"

I'm reminded of something we used to say back when I was growing up.

"My people, my people. They 'jes won't do right."

Why we gotta be like crabs in a barrel, just pullin' each other down whenever one of us reaches the top?

Anyhoo, Jason, leave them fat burgers ALONE, and stop drinkin' that haterade! And if I were you, I would totally watch my back, because Serena could probably whoop your bloated butt with one arm WHILE she was winning another Grand Slam title with the other.

"I'm just sayin', dawg...""

"I'm Just Sayin', Dawg...." Part 7

If you know like I know, you'll keep your men away from Argentina. AND all its women, wherever they might be working their fiendish wiles.

I know whereof I speak. One of those Latina hellspawn caused the painful demise of the last long-term relationship I was in. Oh, sure, the guy I'll call "The Addled Archivist" was 46 years old and didn't have a pot to piss in, and wasn't exactly curling my toes on a regular basis, but he was really smart, and hilariously funny, and knew all the words to every corny 1960's American sitcom theme just like I do, and on his Match.com profile, he'd quoted Jung, or somebody else suitably profound, and, dammit, he was MINE!!!!

But this heifer named Isis, whom he'd broken up with shortly before we met, kept popping back into his life. By email. She had moved back to Buenos Aires, and I guess decided the pickins down there weren't much better. Anyhoo, the Addled Archivist swore that at first, he rebuffed her email advances...until she mentioned there was a possibility she'd be returning to DC.

Eventually, I noticed he was starting to detach, particularly around Thanksgiving when he stuffed himself with my gourmet food and then went home, without even attempting to hook a sister up with some conjugals. And then two months later, Isis surprised him with a classic Argentinian bombshell. She'd just been transferred back to DC!

So the Addled Archivist shows up on my doorstep one night and announced he'd decided to give Isis just one more chance. Nothing personal. I suggested he leave my apartment before I stabbed him in the eye with a fork.

In hindsight, I realize I spent waaaaaaaaaay too much time torturing myself imagining some Salma Hayek look-alike beating me out, even if it was for a booby prize. But eventually, it dawned on me.

"It's bad enough that I put up with the Addled Archivist's lame-ness for as long as I did, considering he fact that he was a 46 year old guy who dressed like a Peace Corp volunteer, lived in a sparsely-renovated dorm, had minimal staying power and was cheap as hell. But how pathetic must THAT chick be if she traveled all the way from ARGENTINA for him???"

"I'm just sayin', dawg..."

"I'm Just Sayin', Dawg...." Part 6B

Say what you will about the challenges we single older women face when it comes to relationships, but you can best BELIEVE THIS...

Ain't a 47-year-old woman ALIVE who would endure the hard work required to keep an older, married sugar daddy entertained AND pay her own car note.

If you don't know, you better ASK somebody.

"I'm just sayin', dawg..."

"I'm Just Sayin', Dawg...." Part 6A

It's been a while since I wrote one of my "I'm Just Sayin', Dawg..." reality checks. I've got some stuff stored up from the last few weeks which got obscured by MJ Mania. So in rapid succession, here is the first of 3....

You gotta hand it to developing countries and ancient religions that allow men to marry as many wives as they want. Some try to "make nice" by adding the codicil a man MUST be able to adequately provide for all those wives, and any children who may show up (yeah, RIIIIIIIIGHT). In fact, since I've been in Kenya, I read about some old goat in Northern Nigeria who had 86 wives and a couple hundred kids, or something crazy like that, and it made international headlines.

I've thought about polygamy a lot since I've been in Kenya. It's perfectly legal to have more than one wife here, and I'm told a lot of men take a second wife when the first one gets a little ragged around the edges, or puts on weight, or can't have kids, or stops getting freaky in the bedroom. And then of course there's the issue of girlfriends, mistresses, or as they say back home, "side pieces." To put it mildly, the practice is rampant up in this joint.

And let's not even mention a phenomenon I'm STILL trying to get my head around, the "Come, We Stay" arrangement, which basically means a guy can tell a woman, "Come, we stay together," and it gets counted as a marriage. No ceremony, no cake, bupkiss. Yeah, I know, I've summarized the hell out of it, but that's the basic principle.

In fact, the more I learn about these cultural practices around relationships, the more I doubt my prospects of EVER connecting with a Kenyan dude. First of all, I'm too damned old to be considered a viable mistress, or to bear children that don't come out with a coupla spare chromosomes, or something. Second, I'm also too damned mouthy for some Kenyan guy to bend his standards and take me on.

But then something like the Steve McNair tragedy comes along to remind me that this kind of male behavior ain't confined to the African continent. It's an unscientific conclusion on my part, but I'm starting to be convinced that most men, if given an opportunity, would juggle multiple, concurrent, long-term relationships. Notice I did not say ALL men. I know quite a few myself who as far as I can tell are faithful, and who have hung in there through the roughest patches imaginable. I also know men who once they realized they couldn't hang in there, at least had the grace to end one relationship either before or shortly after entering another.

So what makes a high-profile, revered for his good deeds family man like Steve McNair think he could get away with diddling a 20 year old girl on the side? Even going away on vacation with her, and allowing his picture to be taken with her? And if the police account is to be believed, one of the reasons he was killed is because the girl suspected he was seeing yet another woman?

Oh, NOW I get it!! He was rich, handsome, and could afford as many women as his appetites required. Which in Kenya is no big deal, for the most part, especially if you marry them all. But in the US, depending on how unstable the gal you pick is, it can get you capped.

"I'm just sayin', dawg...."

To Michael: "Peace, Be Still"

......though I know they'll never let you. They'll be picking over your bones and digging for dirt and trying to make money off you til the end of time.

I am so sorry it ended this way, but I am so glad you're not in pain anymore. Sleep, now and forever.You have earned the rest.

Acclimatized and Traumatized

I fully expect the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to come galloping through the newsroom at any moment. That's because I'm sitting here in Nairobi on a Tuesday afternoon in July wearing a sweater, and pants, and socks, and I am actually shivering.

And no, dear smart-assed readers, it's NOT from symptoms of Swine flu, or my usual "Hormonal Hijinks." And it sure as hell ain't from air conditioning on blast, because last month I thought I would suffocate from the airless, hot atmosphere in the building. No, I'm sitting here blowing on my fingers and wishing I was home wrapped in a blanket because Old Man Winter has decided to "BRING IT" to Nairobi this week.

Now, I don't mind chilly. In fact, given the vicissitudes of my hormonal shifts, chilly is absolutely perfect weather for me. But yesterday and today have been downright cold. I'm talking "oatmeal with cinnamon, raisins and brown sugar" cold, which I would eat if I had any. It's the kind of cold where you huddle under the covers exploring all the "lies, damned lies and obfuscations" you can use to explain why you weren't able to get to the office today. It's the kind of cold where you wonder if an extra squirt of perfume will hide the fact that you avoided getting into a hot shower that morning, because it meant you'd have to exit said shower back out into the cold air.

For reals, y'all, I am cold and pissed. I feel so freakin' cheated! Clearly, one of the unspoken side benefits of moving to Sub-Saharan Africa is access to year-round temperate weather. Sure, it's gonna be hot as Satan's Buttcrack during summer months, but at least you can walk around in shorts and tank tops, while smugly envisioning your friends and family back in the States rockin' parkas and scarves on snowy, sub freezing mornings.

I totally never expected to find myself vulnerable to derision for freezing my tushie off in July! And I'm also eating crow for thinking my African brothers and sisters were kinda wimpy for walking around in coats during their "so-called winter." Cuz right about now, I could jack a sucka for their coat, I SWEAR I ain't lyin'.

Oh, here's yet another reason I'm awaiting the dawn of Armageddon. Between the cold weather and the burst of activity lately in the Fellowship, I occasionally find my mind wandering back to the relative peace, calm and tranquility of life in........GULU. Sure, I was hungry all the time, and lizards were my only companions, and you only had electricity and Internet 3 days a week, and, well, it was A FUCKING POST WAR ZONE. But when things start to get really crazy busy in mad-cap Nai-robbery, it's nice to remember a time when your most complicated decision was if you would have scrawny-assed chicken or scrawny-assed fish with your scrawny-assed chips.

Oh well, don't mind me. (Brrrrrrrrrr.) But please, somebody send me a Snuggie! Preferably one made of Kente cloth, adorned with Maasai beadwork. But I'm not particular, or anything.

"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.