My Host Family

I’m now a member of the Mwachai family and a resident of the village of Mtopanga. Mtopanga in English means Panga River (a panga is the African machete). I was told not to swim in the nearby river since I might attract new friends just as Cholera and Typhoid. Friday my host brother came and got me, and whisked me away, across the Nyali bridge (on the north side of Mombasa) and down the Old Malindi road towards Mtopanga. As we travelled down the road, my host brother Omar (nicknamed Socy) started to tell me the name of each town we were passing through. Along about 15 minutes of Old Malindi road we passed non-stop storefronts and (apparently) 6 towns. They seemed to me to be seamlessly fused together. Turning off the main road onto an appropriately potholed road we ended at my new place of residence.

The Mwachai family is huge. I have a sister, and three brothers just at that house. I think there are a couple sisters off in other places and Socy lives with his wife in a rented room a little further down the road. My room is quaint, the mattress will take some getting used to. No electricity for me, only outlet is in the family room. I take bucket baths and use a squat toilet. The village is always alive, people coming and going, chatting or just observing.

Socy more or less sequestered me for the weekend. After arriving and meeting the family on Friday, I got a quick, confused, and abbreviated tour of Mtopanga, seeing both his room and his cousin’s DVD rental store. Then it was off to the beach with me.

Socy and my relationship has had an awkward beginning. Getting to know him and the life he lives involved many awkward questions followed by pointed answers. Socy has no job. His last real job was cooking for the incoming interns. This led to me finding out about a scandal within my FSD program, followed by a change in the intern orientation which didn’t involve Socy’s cooking. As we went around he made constant references to his ability as a survivor. The support of friends when finances were tight, people being confused as to why he is still poor is he is always around white people (wazungu), and so on. [Quick side note – Wazungu (White people) are inherently connected to money. All white people are believed to be made of money, and those who fraternize with them are thought to benefit] When I would then try to help pay for our activities throughout the day, he would say, “No, you are my brother! As brothers we share.” Loaded statement?? Hmm. I’ve come to notice this sort of beginning to a relationship happening often here in Kenya. I wonder if it is a characteristic of people living below average income or an African tendency. I lean towards the latter. You are everyone’s friend. You are everyone’s brother.

On Sunday night one of my many Mwachai brothers, Bady, left for Naivasha (a long ways from Mombasa) to go through police officer training. It was to be his first time away from Mombasa, and on top of that, his first night spent away from his house in Mtopanga. He’s 22. He was in tears. What a difference, we are trained to independent; here they’re brought up relying on others, especially family members.

My feelings about it all: It’s been awkward getting to know the system of life as they don’t really tell me how to do anything. My host brother is pretty quiet, but at the same time is a bit overbearing. I can’t really tell what he thinks about any one thing. There is a lot of whisperings and chuckles. Quite a different experience from Spain. There I would get directly told what to do, what I did wrong, etc. Here they kind of stare at you judgingly…I’m sure I’ll get it right in the end, be able to read them better, understand their idle stares. Time is the ultimate healer.