Realizing I Know Nothing

As some may have noticed from a post earlier this week, I wasn't in the best mood ever. I blame most of that on Kenyan maize, boiled or grilled- it still tastes awful. Or maybe it had something to do with going to visit a woman with AIDS, living in the slums, abandoned by her alcoholic husband, trying to raise 2 babies with absolutely no money and unable to feed them or herself. Or going out to dinner with a group of women who's husbands had cheated on them and then infected them with HIV, and it being totally okay because it's okay when men aren't faithful- no big deal. Or realizing that I live minutes away from the largest slum in all of Africa, and that the Kenyan government has just decided that millions of people in Nairobi alone just aren't worth providing basic services to, and furthermore let's just cut off the little supply of water they did have so that they can rely on a stream that is polluted with human waste and trash.

I'm realizing I actually know nothing, and that any of the information I learned in America really has no bearing on anything actually going on in Kenya (and I would imagine most places). I'm frustrated.

On the bright side it looks like I have a research topic. On the downside it takes place in the Dadaab refuge camp, which is the most populous refugee camp in the world, and I'll be there by myself. Now I have to deal with a lot of bureaucratic stuff. I have to get an NGO to be my partner, get permission from the UNHCR (after finding an NGO), and then finally get the Kenyan government to give me permission. And I leave for Tanzania next weekend, so I have a lot of work to do between now and then. Hopefully it all works out, and if it doesn't, I've decided I'm just going to go live in the slums and take African Dance Classes, and bake a lot of pumpkin bread which turned out delicious last night.