The Strangeness of Kenyan Children

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I've been in Kenya now for almost 4 months, nad in Vipingo for 3 weeks, and there is something that happens a lot that continues to baffle me. It is the reaction of the children when they see me. Some are amusing, and other are a little on the annoying side.

A time when it's amusing is when I'm standing or sitting somewhere, a child sees me, and they burst into tears. I think that they've never seen a white person before, and the sight of pale skin terrifies them.

Another thing that happens a lot is I'll be walking somewhere, and a kid will see me and yell out 'how are you?' This seems to be a token phrase for Kenyan children. This situation is odd to me at times because I will be walking by a field with 25 kids, and most of them will yell out 'how are you?', usually 5 or 6 times. I'll reply to the first one, but I'm never sure if they expect an answer to the other 20 questions.

The more annoying situations are even stranger to me. This is because, since the only other interactiosn with kids I've had have been with North American children, if this happened over there it would be considered incredibly rude. It goes like this: Last week I was sitting outside my neighbours house before dinner talking to several of them. A few spoke English, and a few did not. I wanted to try out the few phrases of Kiswahili that I had learned, but every time I did the little girl who was there too would hall off her chair she was laughing so hard. No joke, literally fall of her chair. I know I was saying the words right, so I thought she must have found the idea of a mzungu (white person) speaking Kiswahili funny. This happened 5 or 6 times, and eventually I stopped speaking because I was getting tired of being laughed at. The girl was probably 10 years old, and her mother was with us, but that didn't seem to matter. I was confused with what was going on because I know that if that had happened in North America most parents would have scolded their child for being rude to a guest.

The last strange situation has happened several times over the last few weeks. When I'm relaxing after lunch I normally go to sit under a big tree next to the dirt road. There is a field next to the tree, and in the evenings and on weekends kids normally play football there. When I've gone there on weekends to read I aquire an entourage as soon as I sit down. Normally 10 or 15 kids will abandon their game to come and stand in a circle and stare at me. This is the thing that I really don't understand. Most North American children would get bored after a few minutes of this, but many of these kids seem perfectly content to stand watching me for 45 minutes. And I'm not even doing anything interesting. Just reading my book and ignoring them. I don't know if most North American children are used to strange things because of TV and video games, but no kid I know back home, or my younger self for that matter, would dream of doing anything like that. I really wonder if I'm such a new thing for these kids that they will stare at me for so long. And it's not only the really young ones. Some are probably 12 or 13.

I don't know. Maybe it's just because I have so little experience with kids that I find these situations so strange and baffling. Oh well. Most of my time out here is still amazing. Lots of walking on the beach, as well as computer work. There should be several nests hatching in the next few weeks, so I know I'll be kept busy with that.

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