Andrew

Ok, so I know I have been going kind of back and forth with the posts in Kenya, and after Kenya; but to make it clear, this post is mostly about after Kenya. Hahaha, my life is just a big blur of pre/post- Kenya at this point. But anyway! Meet Andrew.

Andrew, his grandmother, and his brother Patrick.

Andrew is a former streetboy, currently living in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY with a host family and going to prep-school through the Harambee program. We did not meet Andrew in Kenya nor did we find out much about him. For a short moment we met his brother Patrick who still lives in Kenya, and we met many of Andrew's friends. However, when we got back from Kenya and as we tried to settle into our lives once again, I received a Facebook message from Andrew.  The message went something like:

You don't know me, but I see that you have met my brother and friends in Kenya. Are you one of Mark's students?

Naturally, since I missed my friends in Kenya so much and they were also friends of Andrew I responded quite pleasantly and engaged in conversation. I have been talking to Andrew regularly since then. He is excited to meet me when I go back to NYC and I'm excited to meet him as well. The more important thing to know about Andrew however is that he is discovering American race relations heavily and many of our conversations shift into the subject.

Originally, Andrew just talked about how much he loved going to parties with West Indian people and listening to the music and dancing. We bonded on this because I am West Indian and grew up in that environment so it always sounds like home to me. Next however, I discovered Andrew's host family was wealthy and even had maids! I could not help but laugh when he told me because up until this point Andrew seemed like just another one of my friends from New York (besides being much younger), the subject of maids drew a line between how much we could relate and in a weird way I was almost offended by it. He just ... doesn't need maids. lol. But! I've grown enough to know that when people want what they want and can afford it, it's more likely none of the world's business. Andrew was a streetboy, now he has maids and buffet dinners, he loves his host family and his new life but he remembers where he came from. He tries to sneak around to help his maids sometimes so he doesn't feel lazy, and he tells me often how much he misses home.

Andrew the American (almost)

Andrew has an interesting distribution of friends. A good portion of them are white because he goes to a prep-school in Manhattan and that is the general population of that group. He also, somehow, has made friends that African-American and live in Harlem or different parts of Brooklyn, they teach him urban culture and slang. In the beginning, Andrew distinguished himself from his African-American friends. He said he loved black people, he asked why black people don't play soccer, he asked a bunch of questions about black people because to him he was still African. As we continued to talk he asked more questions about his white friends, why they think all black people are ghetto? Why they make fun of him when he buys melon or fried chicken? Why movies like 42 (the Jackie Robinson story) create a rift between them. We talked about these things, things I'd never had to explain diplomatically before and it almost scared me. Andrew has only been in America for a few months and he already has learned so much. His peers are enamored with him because he is novel to them, but soon enough (as seems to be happening) he will fall into their general perception of black people and Andrew will either have to cope with that or fall into a general perception of white people, which may not fair well with his host family. I'm happy to be there for Andrew to talk to about these things but it also makes me reflect on again the simplicity of being in Kenya.

America is so different from many other countries because of our large melting pot and the history of racism that exists here. We may be wealthy but now a large portion of the population is unhappy because they face things like this every day. It would be nice if there was a big emphasis on community and nationality in America like there is in Kenya. It would be nice if we could transcend the stereotypes that have dominated our social structure for years and probably will dominate for years to come.