Revelations on the “Convenience” Myth

October 7: I’m missing America. Not, like, everything—necessarily. More just the…comforts of America.

I am a pathetic, pathetic girl.

I spent a good part of last night screening the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes Romeo + Juliet film for my freshman English class (Ahem…side note: we started Act I yesterday and their little eyes absolutely popped out of their heads at all the bawdy language…once I explained it to them…and, God love them, by the end of class, they had big grins on their faces and were proclaiming, “We like Shakespeare!”) and I found myself consequently worn out by the waning daylight outside and decided it was time for dinner. Thinking through my options, I settled on a fried egg sandwich. I reminisced with a roommate over the bland handful that I’d made in our skillet about the conveniences of American shopping and food preparation, thinking back upon my days of microwavable Lean Cuisines and frozen vegetables, deli sandwich meat, cans of Campbell’s soup, and Uncle Ben’s.

My Kenyan diet has been whittled down to some slim pickins: wheat toast, eggs, vegetables from the duka at the end of the alley, bananas, juice from Sampson the juice man, pasta, popcorn, bran flake cereal (or corn if Nakumatt’s out of bran), and the occasional bottle of Coke Light. At least, those are our household staples. Hot lunches are provided by the school and even though everything always tastes the same (David the caterer seems to use the same masala seasoning on just about everything), it’s worth it to get in a little protein and remove the inconvenience of having to slap together lunch in the morning. I drink chai at least once or twice a day out of the teacher’s lounge and Cadbury hot cocoa mix is always easily accessible on the shelf at home whenever I feel like something hot to fill/wake me up. My roommates are pretty good cooks and so if one of them has the energy and gumption to make a real dinner at night, I’ll step in and help and enjoy. But the rest of the time…I don’t know…I guess I’m just tuckered out and would rather fry up an egg quickly and stick it between some toast. Thank heavens for my dear sweet mother who insisted I take along a big honkin’ bottle of multivitamins, or else I’m sure I’d have some terrible dietary deficiency over here.

Anyway…that was silly—me talking about food for that long. But in all seriousness, thinking on this aspect of my new life has got me doing a little thinking. Basically, my conclusion is: I’m selfish, spoiled, and a little pathetic. How embarrassing. Here I am, trying to do all the right things, trying to be on track with whatever it is the Lord’s got me here doing, learning and living and growing however I can day in and day out—and it’s the dumb things like “conveniences” that’ve got me all hung up. I get so irritated by the fact that running a simple errand like grabbing milk at the grocery store can become an hour-long ordeal because of unpredictable traffic. I don’t like that I had to draft this blog last night in my room and upload it this morning because it isn’t safe to walk to or from the internet café past dusk. There are usually only three options at the movie theater a week, plus some questionable Bollywood (sp?) film, and only occasionally is one of them worth watching. I have trouble concealing my exasperation that while my students will take their sweet time to do anything I ask them to do, I had for darn sure be ready to give them back their essays or homework from the day before and have everything entered into my grade book so they can see if their “A” changed to an “A-” overnight. I can’t believe I’m missing Buckeye football games because my internet won’t let me watch things over here. And it kills me that I’m seven hours ahead of the rest of my world and can’t ever seem to connect with people I love.

Convenience, I’m finding, is simply a thing of my past. An American novelty. As foreign here as sunglasses, flip-flops, Kraft macaroni and cheese, deodorant (??), and blonde hair. Things just don’t work the same way here. People move slowly, work slowly, eat slowly, think slowly. In fact, I think the only time I’ve seen a Kenyan hurry at anything is when they’re driving or chasing after a matatu. I’ll tell you one thing, though: losing that privilege of convenience is slowing me down considerably. I could very well be falling into that standard, predictable missionary “counting my blessings” mode. But that may just be a good thing for me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful and perfectly ironic?