Well, I do appreciate being an American. I don’t have as many American friends in Nairobi any more – people have moved on, Nairobi being a transient city – and pretty much the only Americans I am around are when I occasionally see other MCCers, which doesn’t happen terribly often. But there were Americans in Accra for UNCTAD and for the Civil Society Forum, and I found that I Really Enjoyed Being Around Them. I didn’t actually spend much time with Americans, but I really got into embracing my American Identity. I said “Dude!” a lot more than I usually do; I actually said “Bless You” when a colleague sneezed (NOT something I’ve done in a long time); I was really feeling happy to be an American on the cusp of a regime change (Obama! Obama! Pennsylvania? How could you let me down?).
Maybe also it was that I had the added ‘glamour’ of being around a bunch of white people (which was weird in and of itself) and being the One Who Lives in “Africa”. Yes, I let myself fall into the trap of just accepting the looks that some folks who work for NGOs in Europe or North America give when I say I live in Nairobi….it’s this look that involves admiration and curiosity and maybe envy…as opposed to nipping that in the bud. After all, there is nothing intrinsically noble about living in Kenya as an ex-pat working for an NGO; I think it’s rather hard to live in Nairobi as an ex-pat and not have one’s life be rather ignoble. But no, instead of trying to somehow express that and wipe that look off anyone’s face, I just accepted it.
How exactly does one work off penance for that?
# posted by debbyscott @ 3:08 PM
: 12:06 AM 