Public Service tip of the day: Go create some non-zero-sumness

I have been tearing through some great books this summer! Last week I finished reading the Bill Clinton-approved Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. I had started reading it back in December, but when Christmas and then spring semester came along, it got put back on the shelf. I'm glad I took it with me to read in Kenya though - it's easily one of the most amazing books I've ever read.

The author Robert Wright looks at human history as a process of cultural evolution, just as our biological development as a species is a process of organic evolution. Like the genes in our bodies, Wright says our cultures are built on "memes," small units of ideas or information that get improved on every time they are transmitted to a new person. For instance, a song melody is a meme that enters my brain and whether I am aware of it or not, it influences the next melody or idea that I put back out into the universe. The idea of memes is actually what I think Malcolm Gladwell was getting at in his book The Tipping Point. Gladwell tells of how a small group of people in Greenwich Village started wearing Hush Puppies again in the 1990s; soon other people saw them doing it, thought it was a cool look, and then millions of people were wearing Hush Puppies again. This was a "Hush Puppy meme" that got spread throughout the world like an epidemic.

The books that I'll never forget are the ones that make me change the way I look at and think about the world. Nonzero has joined a few books that have done that for me - Earth in Mind, Bowling Alone, and The Tao of Pooh. In fact, Nonzero is one big fat meme in itself - the presentation of a profound idea that will influence the way I think about my role as a public servant and human being moving forward in this life. The book ends with a call to action for us all to go out into the world and create more of what he calls "non-zero-sumness" Non-zero-sumness is his adapted term from game theory, meaning situations where there is a win-win for all parties involved (amusingly, Wright actually wanted to title the book "Non-zero-sumness" but his publishing company thought it was a little too goofy, hence the sleek title, Nonzero).

Among the most intriguing questions he ponders is this: Will there one day be a single global government? His points about the non-zero-sumness that has been created by current international governing bodies such as the World Trade Organization, European Union, United Nations, and others has me extremely intrigued...

Go read this book!

Berklee in Kenya

This was in Kenya's Sunday Nation newspaper yesterday:

My alma mater, Berklee College of Music came to Nairobi at the end of June to hold auditions for aspiring African musicians who hope to gain a scholarship to study there. They've been doing this for a few years now, and musicians from all over Africa fly to Nairobi for a shot at a scholarship - they come from South Africa, Morocco, Ghana, Egpyt, and Tanzania to name just a few, simply for the opportunity to be heard.

And the best ones really do end up with oftentimes a full-ride scholarship to the best music school in the world. This is just another reason why Berklee is so awesome - it's a school that truly celebrates music from all cultures and traditions from all over the world, and gives its students the opportunity to jam with top-notch musicians from all over this great big planet. When I was there, I met amazing musicians/people from South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. I would estimate that at least a fourth of its student body is from outside the U.S. Consider this for instance: my freshman dorm roommate was from Ecuador.

At the top of the article above, it proclaims, "Berklee is to budding musicians what Harvard is to business execs." As an alum, I'll gladly take that analogy. Kudos to Berklee President Roger Brown and his wife Linda Mason for setting up the Africa scholarship program and expanding the school's brand globally. I was happy to hear from my classmate Kate Raum (who is in Tanzania this summer) that she recently saw a guy riding on a bus with his Berklee College of Music t-shirt flapping in the wind. Here's to international public service, Berklee. :)

I am just here.

One of my favorite phrases that Kenyans are prone to saying is, "I am just here." I have heard this (or "We are just here," or "You are just here") over a hundred times over the past seven weeks that I've been in Kenya. I've heard it in so many situations - such as when Ben takes a seat on the sofa in Welliminah's living room after being welcomed in ("So David, I am just here"), or running into our driver Okwemba while walking in the Luanda marketplace ("So, we are just here"). The statement is always accompanied by a large, satisfied smile and direct, prolonged eye contact - I suppose, in order to savor the moment that the person is "just here" in.

The first time hearing this expression - like I imagine Americans reading this right now - I found it a bit funny. When I would hear the phrase, I would think to myself, "Yes clearly, I can see you." Yet, it seems to have grown on me. I have begun finding myself echoing the expression in return to my Kenyan counterparts ("Yes, we are here"). Despite the fact that the phrase is a statement of the obvious, there's some beauty in the acknowledgment of the moment at hand - the space that is being occupied, the people occupying it, and the simple joy in being "here," wherever that may be. It makes me realize how seldom I stop to appreciate each unique moment in time in my daily life in the United States (and how much our culture seems to discourage it).

I haven't really used this blog to reflect on my personal thoughts, so I wanted to briefly share how I have fared in Kenya, and to share some reflections on what I have personally gained over the past seven weeks.  Over the first twenty-plus years of my life, I have come to understand that I have a strong tendency to constantly look forward. I'm always looking ahead (what's next? where am I going? what's happening tomorrow?). This is my fourth trip abroad in my life, and each time, I have found myself constantly thinking about what I would do when I get back to the States and back to "normal life." Each time, I would get back and reflect on my trip and often find myself wishing I had appreciated my time overseas more, and not spent so much time thinking about what I would do when I got home.

This trip has been different though. Perhaps my past regrets of not staying "in the moment" has caused me to be more conscious about it this time around. But I also think I have matured and become a wiser person since the last time I traveled abroad. I seem to be appreciating each moment more. For instance, I believe the work I'm doing for Kijana is important, but I would also have to say that many seemingly mundane moments from the past seven weeks have been equally important. Moments like lying on the grass under the shade of an avocado tree with Juliette's baby Vincent sitting on my stomach for an hour at a time. Moments like walking with Ben at sunset - soft, warm sunlight from the horizon, beautiful lush green plants in every direction, the smell of smoke in the air as families cook dinner - as I come to the realization that I feel more alive than I have ever felt in my life.

That feeling of being alive is what being a human is supposed to feel like. I believe that that feeling is the fulfillment of the human spirit's highest potential. It's the feeling of having a warm heart - spread to me like a contagious virus by the smiles and genuine spirit of virtually every person I have met here. I have been infected by the warmest hearts I have ever encountered, and I intend to bring it home with me.

I have three more weeks of staying in the moment here in Es'saba village. I am truly going to miss my Kenyan family - Welliminah, Juliette, Ann, Sam, Ben, Divo, Moraa, Vincent, and others - and I am truly going to miss the beauty and peacefulness that permeates throughout this paradise. This is sincerely the happiest I have been in my life. I could stay here forever.

But let me stop myself from looking too far into the future, lest I forget: I am just here.

Jammin' with Flat Bill

My dream of jamming with Bill Clinton - me on piano, him on sax - lives on. One day it will happen....it just has to (especially now that the Clinton School has not one but two former music majors!). In preparation for that moment, I've been jamming with Flat Bill here in Kenya (see picture to left). It will suffice for now.

What's a musician to do when he's got a sweet melody in his head but no piano or keyboard readily available to pluck it out? The answer: search Google for "java piano".

At five weeks and counting, this is the longest I have gone without touching a piano/keyboard since I started playing piano in second grade at age seven (surpassing the previous high of four weeks). I try not to be as melodramatic about my need to play piano as some of the people I met at Berklee College of Music ("I can't live without music, bro!"), but I'm honestly beginning to hanker for the opportunity to lay my fingers on ivorite (fake ivory - the ethical way to go!) keys once again. Making music just makes life more fun.

Patrick and I have begun co-writing a song that I am going to finish when I get back to the States. I first had the idea when I was in Kenya in 2007, but I never followed up on it, but Patrick has helped breathe some new life into it. It's going to be called, "How Are You, Mzungu?" You may recall from a previous blog post that "mzungu" is the Swahili word for "white person," which I hear regularly around here being shouted by surprised children as they take notice of me. But I failed to mention in that previous post that the word is also inevitably accompanied by the greeting "How are you?", which seems to be the first bit of English that every Kenyan child learns (and I have reason to believe that most of them don't even know what the phrase means, based on my attempts at returning the question to them).

But what is most interesting about their greeting is the way they say it. The kids - all of them, meaning I literally haven't heard a kid here stray from this rule - put the three words to separate pitches, making a little melody out of it. They say it very quickly, putting a little dip in the "are," sandwiched in between two higher pitches for "how," and "you" (for my musician friends out there, the solfège is Mi-Do-Re for How-Are-You).

So seeing how they have naturally constructed a melody out of the line, I'm really just pilfering it to make a song out of the only two things they say to me as I pass by them: "How are you?" and "mzungu." And isn't it convenient that these two things rhyme?

Here's the vision for the song - a typical African pop sound with beautiful, clean electric guitar, simple harmony, and groove-inducing drums/percussion. Patrick helped round out the lyrics in the chorus, which will be sung by some kijanas (kids): "How are you, mzungu? / I hope you're having a very nice day / How are you, mzungu? / I know you came from so far away."

A future Kenyan pop hit? Bill on sax?

The World Cup - I enjoyed it!

I just wanted to drop a quick note on here to say that I really enjoyed the World Cup. I've never paid attention to it before, or to soccer for that matter, but after watching the last month's worth of games, I think I have a new appreciation for the world's most popular sport.

In fact, I think the World Cup is more exciting and internationally-inspiring than the Summer Olympics. I'll definitely never miss another tournament again.

The picture here is of the television in Welliminah's living room that Patrick, Ben, and I watched almost all of the games on.

Looking forward to Brazil 2014! :)

Food Inc.redible!

The picture to the right is what a typical dinner looks like for Patrick and me every night here. The house-help cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner for us every day - we are seriously spoiled. The food is brought out in the containers that you see in the picture. It's a surprise every night to open up the lids and see what's inside them. We can usually count on a few things: rice or spaghetti, beef or chicken, a broth made from the meat, some form of potatoes, greens called sukuma wiki (which literally translates as "push the week," because the dish is a cheap way to fill up a week's worth of meals), and a cornbread-ish side dish called ugali, which is an East African staple for every lunch and dinner (Kenyans say it's not a meal unless you have ugali).

Put it all together, add a Coke, and you've got a delicious meal! As a side comment, a few things about our meals here:

1. Patrick and I eat alone. One-on-one, two men, talking about men stuff at the end of each long day of public service.

2. The women all eat in the kitchen, which is located in the small hut in the back of the house. I've asked them if we can all eat together, but they don't seem too "in to it." I think they like being separate from us (I can hear them laughing and having a good ol' time  back there every night). I asked them if they usually eat inside at the dining table where Patrick and I eat when they don't have visitors, and they said no. They always eat at the kitchen table. This makes sense to me, as Americans often simply eat at the kitchen table instead of the more formal dining table on an average night. It's just easier and more comfortable, right?

3. Patrick and I have good conversations nonetheless though. 

4. Toothpicks or floss are essential after each meal...I'll explain why a little later.

Tasty food is all well and good, but as someone who knows me, you may be aware that earlier this year I became an organic/local/ethical food disciple after seeing the documentary Food Inc. (which has led me to become a Whole Foods shopper under the tutelage of David Monteith, and to reject fast food from my diet - a pretty big shift from a year ago when I worked at McDonald's headquarters and ate their food everyday!). So much like Food Inc. takes you behind the scenes of the food we eat in the U.S., this blog post, "Food Inc.redible!" aims to give you a behind the scenes look at where this amazing food that winds up on my plate every night comes from. Hint: You don't have to look far.

Let's start with the staple food: corn, or as Kenyans call it, maize. Walking around the village here, it is easy to notice that corn is grown on every plot of land (as I pass by the tall, leafy green stalks, I keep on half-expecting Shoeless Joe Jackson to appear, or at least a Kenyan version of him, but it hasn't happened yet...). Kenyans plant (and harvest) their crops twice a year - in March and September. It's currently harvest time in Es'saba, hence the picture to your right. I walked out of the house one day and came upon this sight - hundreds of cobs of corn sprawled out on the ground of the compound. I was utterly confused and intrigued. I hadn't seen anyone put the corn there, so it was unexpected. I found out that this was the first step in a whole process for cultivating each maize harvest. After removing each cob from the stalk, Welliminah hired some help to spread out all the corn on the ground in order to dry all the kernels out. After a few days of this, they started removing all of the kernels from the cobs, putting them in sacks and continuing to let them dry out every afternoon under the sun. Finally, they will take the sacks of dried kernels up to the marketplace to have them ground into flour, or maize/cornmeal called unga or posho. This flour is the stuff that ugali is made from, and served at every meal (I've seen ugali being made - it's basically identical to how you make instant mashed potatoes - you boil water and start stirring the flour in until it starts absorbing the moisture and firms up). 

I've been told that all the corn (and the posho it produces) you see in these pictures will last Welliminah six months, which happens to be exactly when the next harvest comes in. Not a bad system, eh? However, apparently not everybody's harvest turns out as well as Welliminah's. In addition to practicing good crop rotation and soil tilling, she's also able to afford some good fertilizer. Ben has pointed out several less successful harvests on our walks. 

Lastly - the best part: This corn is for human consumption only!!! No cows, chickens, goats, or terrible turkeys get their paws or hooves or claws on this good stuff. They eat fresh, delicious green napier grass. And they love it. Speaking of cows...

Unlike the misleading cartoon drawings of smiling cows grazing green pastures that you see on American food packaging, these cows really are happy. Trust me - I hung out with them for like fifteen minutes one day in their shed in the back of the house...they have a good time back there, and they really enjoy having their picture taken. Cows in Kenya typically live a decently long life, and they are able to grow naturally with out any funky hormones. Welliminah gets fresh milk everyday from the cows, straight from her backyard. Patrick and I had originally taken the milk in our tea the first week we were here, but we soon switched to consumer-packaged milk after we had stomach problems from it. It may not be pasteurized, but it works for Welliminah and her family. 

Now, on the issue of turning cows into "beef" (or "nyama"), to put it euphemistically. Typically, when the cow reaches old age and has reached the end of its usefulness in producing milk (or when it's time for a special celebration!), the owner will take the cow to the butcher to be slaughtered. Apparently, this consists of cutting off the cow's neck (hopefully with something sharp). Yeah, slaughter is never fun, but at least here I know that the cow is happy and has lived a natural life free from hormones that make it produce way more milk than is possibly safe. And most importantly what we call "grass-fed beef" in the U.S. is just called "beef" here. That's good.

Finally, cows are a bit of a status symbol here. They are an indication of wealth. Welliminah has three. A lot of people seem to have two, some only have one. Ben had an excellent analogy: Cows are like savings accounts. If you ever run low on money, you just take your cow up to the market, have it slaughtered, and sell the meat to the butcher. Fast, easy, good money. Check out that delicious slab of meat hanging out of the butcher shop in the Luanda marketplace in the photo to the left. Mmmm....(and right next to the clothing boutique shop - convenient location!). This is where the beef that Patrick and I eat comes from - obviously, they're not slaughtering cows for us (YET...I wouldn't put it past their hospitality). KSh200 ($2.67) per kilogram (1kg = 2.2lbs).

Now as for the original white meat: chicken (appropriately enough called "kuku" in Swahili; yes that's pronounced "cuckoo"). Chicken might be the food that we eat here most that is easiest to stay aware of, because we literally walk amongst the chickens that we eat everyday. They stay in a coop at night, but they roam around the compound during the day, pecking mindlessly at grass and interesting bugs all afternoon. Check out the picture to the right - 7am alarm clock today, delicious kuku tomorrow night!

The house-help, Juliette kills the chickens and then prepares them for us. Perhaps contributing to my reputation as a "soft man," I have not been willing to investigate this sight in person yet, even after they invited me to slit a chicken's neck myself (but Patrick hasn't either, so I feel justified). You'd think that we'd start noticing the chicken population around the compound begin to diminish, but apparently they keep on purchasing new chickens from the marketplace. I haven't seen any baby chicks yet, so I'm thinking that the roosters need to step up their game a little bit. I suppose we have been eating homegrown eggs for breakfast though, so maybe that's why.

Biting into a piece of chicken here, you are acutely aware that you aren't in America. This is the reason we need toothpicks after each meal. Because the meat is tougher here - the chickens and cows actually walk around and use their muscles. In fact, unlike in America, the chickens here are actually able to walk around all day with out falling down every three steps. I'm thinking I should shoot some video to take back and show to Tyson, since I'm sure they have forgotten what a walking chicken looks like. Really though, it's not hard to get used to the toughness. It's not that bad, and the chicken is still as tasty as ever. 

Another interesting thing about chicken consumption here: they eat it all. Divo loves chicken feet (which I've heard of eating before), and Moraa loves eating the chicken head (which I have not heard of before, and which quite frankly really grosses me out - that's the chicken's brain, folks; sans eyeball and beak). Thankfully, they only give us the normal stuff - legs, thighs, wings...although I don't think we've ever been served the breast...the women must keep it for themselves since it's the best part!

And to round out this exposé on Kenyan village food - I'm taking you all the way back - to the back of the compound, behind the latrines. That's where Welliminah's banana trees are. They seem to flourish back there. I wonder if there's any correlation between their productivity and their proximity to the latrines, and its constantly renewing supply of natural fertilizer being placed deep into the ground beneath the banana trees (if you catch my drift...).

All there is to say about the bananas here is that they are unbelievably delicious. These are real organic bananas, friends - and you can taste the difference. It's almost like you've never tasted a real banana before eating these. 

I hope you enjoyed "Food Inc.redible!" and weren't too shocked by the behind-the-scenes look at food in Kenya. I know it's pretty astonishing, especially if you're used to Supermarket life in the U.S.A. Yet, this doesn't have to be completely foreign or shocking to Americans. If you are willing to go out on a limb and try shopping at your local farmer's market this weekend, you might find that it's not so different after all. The keyword is local.

Sixty Cent Haircut

Discuss.