I have a special monthly "Eat, Pray, Africa" mailing list that I write for family, friends and "co-conspirators" where I document my planning, starts-stops, and emotions surrounding this multi-year, multi-country trip through Africa. I get great feedback from it. Every now and then I will share [edited] versions of those emails on here. You can read my previous post about learning how to sell myself here
In my Chef Afrik birthday post, I discussed how I had become slightly discouraged with Chef Afrik and Eat, Pray, Africa. This email from November will describe where I was coming from. The tone is rather defeated and uninspiring but it captures how l was feeling at the time . I am in a much better place now, and happy to share where I currently am with Eat, Pray Africa:
In early 2012, my friend Stephanie asked me to write a piece about diasporan self-labeling for a website called “Hornlight.” In the article, I discuss coming to terms with the transition of being just “Kenyan” to becoming “Kenyan-American.” By that point in time, I had been living in the U.S. a few months shy from a decade. And today, from the many places I have called “home” in my short life, America is the country I have lived in the longest.
Here is an edited excerpt from the piece I wrote:
My name is [Adhis]. I am in a crisis.
I am Kenyan, a label that has been acceptable to me for the last 23 years of my life. But today, I have decided to add an extra word to that label. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I nowconsider myself Kenyan-American.
*record needle scratches*
Yes, I said it! I am now Kenya-American. Is this as big a deal to anyone else as it is tome? Am I overdramatizing the situation? I’d like to think not. I am tweaking how I have labeled myself all my life, and as a result, it changes how others will perceive me.
My sister certainly thought I was being dramatic when I asked her about it
“But you are Kenyan-American!”
“No, I’m not,” I squeaked (my emotions went from 10-80 mph in a matter of seconds).
“Well if you think about it, you have now lived here in the US exactly the same amount of time you lived in Kenya,” she said matter-of-factly.
“And, I might add, you weren’t even born in Kenya.”
I shut down the conversation then and there. I was not ready for her smart mouth…or the truth. I admit there is nothing that she said that was a lie. Her tone though…
It is quite scary watching myself slowly losing my “Kenyan-ness” as the years pass. It’s like watching the sand trickle through an hourglass. And as each sand particle drops, my accent grows stronger...or my cultural perspective shifts more.
And I can feel myself beginning to overcompensate with my obsession with Kenya and the continent. As in, I can’t have people question my authentic African-ness by not being able to name all the ten Cape Verde islands, right?
Or pushing my mother to teach me all her Kenyan recipes (something I was never interested in before). [NOTE: The whole premise for starting Chef Afrik!]
Or asking my dad to repeat my tribe’s traditional wedding ceremony process.
Or suddenly wanting to use my Kenyan middle name [Adhis] over my anglo first name.
Because not knowing or doing any of the aforementioned obviously indicates that I am not African, right?
...
My biggest fear is that by claiming the “American” in Kenyan-American, am I then disclaiming the Kenyan in me?
****
My first thought upon re-reading this two years later was, “Wow, Adhis! Was this written prematurely or was this written prematurely?”
Because I am not even an American citizen TODAY. I can only begin applying for citizenship next August 2014.
I found out this new information over the summer, and boy has it thrown a wrench in my “Eat, Pray, Africa” plans for a number of reasons:
1) According to my 1.5 year planning process, the goal was to begin my “Eat, Pray, Africa” trip the summer of 2014. This application process falls smack dab in the middle of that timeline.
2) Applying for citizenship could take six months to a year. This means postponing trip by six months to a year.
3) There is no option NOT to apply for the citizenship. Speaking strictly about travel, we all know some of the benefits that an American passport can offer. In terms of travel logistics, it is easier and cheaper; and in terms of safety...well, we’ve all seen the U.S. response to any trouble their citizens my suffer with abroad…!
The decision to postpone "Eat, Pray, Africa" should be easy enough. I could plan more, save more money, make stronger contacts…but it is hard for me to come to terms with that. For the last year, I have pretty much figured out how 2014 would look for me: I would quit my job in early July, go to the World Cup in Brazil then start hitting the road. It’s what I have been working on for so long, that it is very hard for me to consider anything else. And am I willing to put my life on hold for another year to make this happen?
Because yes, my life has been on hold for this.
So this is a wordy way for me to announce that I’ll be pushing the “Eat, Pray, Africa” trip to 2015. Likely the summer of 2015.
I'm still a little miffed about it. I knew preparing for this trip would have its ups and downs, but this threw me.
Again, thanks for being apart of this journey of mine.
Best
Adhis
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