Why Kenya?

I can’t really be honest about my Kenyan experience unless I talk about why I came here. I came here for love. I came here because I met a Kenyan in 2006 that changed me forever. He talked about family and kids and all of the things that I decided I wanted at age 36/37. I came back in 2007 to solidify/confirm feelings, etc. and then moved here in 2008. I’m going to skip all of the tedious, painful, not so wonderful details, but at the end of the day, I’m not married, don’t have children and my beloved is definitely not in my life. I mention this only because one of the most difficult parts of living here has been learning how to navigate the very tricky sexual dynamics in this country. I’ve learned that telling a woman that you want to have children with her is equivalent to an American man saying, “Hi. I like you. Let’s date.” I’ve learned that monogamy is really a silly Western concept for most men here – even the 85% who go to church on Sunday. It’s entirely acceptable for a married man with children to also have a girlfriend on the side with a baby or two. African men are allowed to “marry” as many women as they like so monogamy and “faithfulness” have entirely different tones. And what of marriage? Well, there’s the tribal marriage, and “come as you stay” marriage, and a church marriage. All are recognized. All are legal. All have implied legal rights. BUT when you ask a man you meet, “are you married?” you’re not really asking the right question. What you must learn to ask is, “have you ever participated in any ceremony be it legal, tribal or otherwise that would in any interpretation be considered a wedding ceremony?” And I learned that lesson the hard way. My darling dearest, who shall remain nameless, told me he had two children from a previous relationship. When we finally saw each other long after I'd arrived in Kenya and I had gotten a bit smarter about things and asked “have you ever participated in any ceremony be it legal, tribal or otherwise that would in any interpretation be considered a wedding ceremony?”—he said NO. Never. Of course I then soon discovered that he didn’t consider himself married because they never chewed on a goat’s ear (a tribal tradition) so the fact that he had lived with and maintained a family (and that includes a wife) for 10 years didn’t really fit HIS definition of married so his answer to me was, technically, correct. Try making sense of that one. And as much as I’d like to say that my little peach is the only prat capable of such ridiculous nuance, he’s not. I can say that in my own “field research” most men have lied to me about their home life to some degree. If there’s no “wife”, there’s a “baby mama” (girlfriend with a baby or babies). “But we’re not married.” OR there are those that have just sat down with me at a business lunch, listened to my producer pitch for all of five minutes, and then said, “…that’s all fine. When can we have sex?” Most are married…some aren’t. That’s how they roll in Kenya. And it’s all just really strange. All of it. Men who want to get me pregnant but who don’t want to date…first. Married men who want a white girlfriend. “Semi-married” men who want to add to their brood. I could go on and on with the various scenarios which are all playing out in Kenya. And you haven’t even gotten so far as to entertain sex yet…you’re just having a meal… The HIV prevalence in Kenya overall is very high...some say 1:9…pretty scary stuff. So IF you find someone who isn’t married, committed, chewing a goat’s ear, living with their baby mama, etc., then you have to confront the very real situation of HIV/AIDS and a host of other public health issues and you must be FEROCIOUS about them. And if you’ve ever had a FEROCIOUS conversation about sex…it pretty much sucks the sex out of the room. You still hear very intelligent, successful men say, “I don’t need to use a condom because we’re both really clean people”. I’ve actually gone out for a romantic dinner only to leave in a taxi because the conversation went from smoochy smoochy to a fight over why a condom is necessary. And all of this leaves me feeling a bit sad and very weary…which isn’t a nice place to be. There are three reasons men want to be with me a male friend of mine told me one, “to cheat because their wives will never meet you”, “for a visa (American visa is a very hot commodity), or “for money”. And he’s Kenyan! Tough not to get jaded when that’s the case. Oh! I almost forgot the fourth reason that he developed a few weeks later… “you’re almost 40, single, no kids…clearly you’re desperate…” Nice.

Now are all men dogs? Definitely not. My current boyfriend is an absolutely amazing man. But is there a dramatic cultural gap between the guys I know in America that cheat and the lifestyle of cheating that isn’t really cheating here.

Which makes me think about African women more and more. You know, most Africans exist on less than $1.00US/day. They live in extreme poverty and don’t eat every day. While I look out from my very nice balcony in my very nice flat at the cars parked below and over to the beautiful swimming pool, I am constantly reminded that I am living a version of Africa that is real for very few locals. The very educated, upper middle class and rich live this way…most do not. And what’s strange about that is that I don’t live what I consider to be an opulent lifestyle. I don’t eat out several times a week. I don’t go out to the movies much (unless my girlfriend "R" wants to go on cheap movie night). I don’t buy new clothes or shoes. I don’t have a flash car (I drive a borrowed 1975 Land Rover 109 – “The Beast”). I have flatmates so I can afford my apartment. But in this country—I’m rich. Wealthy. And so I think about Kenyan women who struggle most days to care for their families and even for those that don’t struggle so much. And I realize that part of their struggle is the on-going battle to hang on to the man in their life. Because it makes a difference most of the time. Two incomes are better than one no matter how small the income may well be. So as an African woman, you learn to keep quiet when he doesn’t come home until very late – or at all. And you try to ignore when you hear through the streets that your husband has a girlfriend…with a baby. And you try not to cringe too much when he’s in your bed knowing that you’re participating in what the HIV world calls “concurrency” – where there’s more than one relationship going on between a married couple. (…he’s with his wife AND his girlfriend and the girlfriend has her other lovers…) Do you say NO to his advances like the NGO’s tell you knowing full well he might not pay rent because you did? Or do you try and demand a condom in your marriage bed knowing you may get the same result? It’s definitely a dilemma for many women. Women have been given so many “empowerment” messages in this part of the world to try and protect themselves from HIV/AIDS that they seemed to have “moved forward” a bit and left the men behind. So when you’re empowered wife demands a condom in the bedroom because she knows you’re with other women, the not so empowered left behind man is lost. He doesn’t understand this new woman and, at times, beats her to bring back the woman he does know. So when you ask a Kenyan man if he cheats, you’re really asking a question that makes NO sense in Africa because “cheating” is a decidedly un-African point of view. So imagine the frustration and fear of women who have been told about HIV, who attempt to assert their sexual rights in their relationship, and who are confronted by a frustrated, fearful man who feels like he’s losing his culture, his identity, and his wife. “It’s all just a bit upside down” is how one of my good male friends put it. I agree.