Norwegian funniness

11/30 7 p.m. Umoja apartment

Rehearsals for Saturday's 20th Anniversary celebration with the Norwegian drama group have been really interesting. One big part of that is the three languages being thrown around (Swahili, English, Norwegian) and I'm still not used to the extreme lack of organization.

And anytime I try to suggest something to Haba na Haba during their discussions in rehearsal (similar to Whisper business), they start talking about it in rapid Swahili slang so I can't understand it and add input or explain myself better if they're misunderstanding me.

The Norwegian situation is a bit stressful because they don't understand the culture as well as I do and I see miscommunications happening all the time, but never feel like it's my place to say anything. One good example is the original attempt to play syncopated African drums to a 3/4 count Norwegian folk song, which I immediately knew would end in disater. And it did...with all of us doing a funny little line dance kicking thing to a completely different rhythm from either of the other existing two (the drums and the singing) and people tripping over themselves in a comic mess. Then the Norwegians would speak rapid Norwegian to each other and the Kenyans would yell rapid Swahili to each other and I would just kind of mumble to myself in English, trying to hide a grumpy face.

Our attempt at blending traditional dances from both cultures and performing a combined skit about a king (which makes very little sense) drags on for at least half an hour. Then, we were trying to figure out a way to wrap it all up after the song that closes the skit and someone suggested having each individual person (there are about 20 of us) do an individual dance in the middle before exiting. Some of the Norwegians interpreted this as dancing the polka into the middle in pairs,
then re-joining the line. The next 20 minutes or so consisted of a confused debacle where the Kenyans took turns shaking their butts in front of our half-assed semicircle line thing while some of the Norwegians did sporadic little polka jigs, sometimes in pairs and sometimes alone. Then at some point, someone decided we should exit and led everyone out in a sort of follow-the-leader kanga line thing. Then there was some more incomprehensible foreign babble and the Norwegians had to leave so they wouldn't hit rush hour traffic.

The whole ordeal was bizarre. But honestly, this sort of thing barely even stands out over here. I honestly am hardly phased anymore. Despite my cynicism, the cultural dancing stuff is really neat and we have a good time together. And hey, I learned the polka. Julia, get ready :)

In other news, I went to the National Archives and the Daily Nation Media Centre today to research for my paper on slum violence, gangs, Mungiki, and chang'aa. I continue to find more and more fascinating information on the dynamics of this volatile situation. The Haba na Haba people have been extremely helpful and I've interviewed about five of them about personal experiences and observations. I've also done several videoed interveiews about MYSA and the impact of Haba na Haba, which have really blown my mind. These kids have said some of the most inspirational things I've ever heard in my life and I'm really excited to attempt to create a promotional video when I return to the states.