I think it's supposed to be awkward but it wasn't....

I would consider myself a fairly awkward person, but it has never really bothered me because I just blame it on living at a summer camp for 1/4 of my life.  However, here in Africa many words have been redefined including clean, middle of nowhere, delicious, easy, parent, confusion and many more.  Today, during my Directed Research I encountered a situation which I'm pretty sure should have been way more awkward than it was during our interviews.  After a full day of mapping an area using GPS, walking 12 km by foot in the hot sun, I was more than thrilled to be on interviews the next day (today).  We had a two page questionnaire that was quite extensive about wildlife and their interactions that were supposed to take approximately 30 minutes each.

Now, just to set the scene for this situation.  We, Crossley, Stanley (our local guide translator) and I, are out in the middle of nowhere with a couple bomas (temporary settlements) full of Maasai families that we set out to interview.  I was wearing my culturally appropriate long skirt with my loose shirt and a tie-dye bandana on my head that I was prepared to trade later at the market.  Oh and I was caked in sunscreen giving me that overall strangely shiny look.  Put the backpack with the huge smiley face on my back and you've got quite the outfit.

We had just been told by our professor via radio that we needed to conduct the interviews in Swahili.  Now, my swahili is still not very good and I can't talk to anyone for more than 3 minutes if they aren't under the age of 10.  All of a sudden I was told that I had to interview these people who also barely know swahili (they speak kimaasai) and get something out of it with the help of my local guide.  A teenage boy who knows swahili offers to translate from Kimaasai to Kiswahili and then our local guide would translate from Kiswahili to english.  So the interview begins and they put out their cute little chairs to welcome us into their home and we sit under the tree....sounds peaceful right?

All of a sudden word gets around the homestead that wazungu (white people) are present and the interview becomes a family event.  There are probably about 10 little munchkins with snot dripping from their nose and a third of them are not clothed.  There are 5 teenagers with their sassy faces who gather together and whisper things to each other followed by loud laughter and you know they are talking about you.  Then we have the mommas who are yelling at you for taking pictures even though it wasn't a camera but actually a GPS and asking for money.  Add on the multiple women who have breasts blatantly out of their robe "breast feeding" aka within one hour of the last time the kid was around.  We can't forget about the men with their herding sticks and skirts that are shorter than mine that too are finding it difficult not to make jokes.  Lastly, the mzee, who is the old man that is in charge of the boma, who people told us was not mentally stable that we were supposedly interviewing (probably not the best scientific choice) was leaning against a tree mumbling to himself.

Now I try and bring some sort of normality to the situation and start the interview by whipping out my swahili with of course the worst accent ever and reading off some questions.  After every third word or any word more than 4 letters they would burst into laughter and have at least a 15 second discussion, about what, I have no idea.  There were lots of giggles and stares and of course the pointing.  So between the avoiding people's stares and giggles and whatever impressions they had of us white people there was the fact that there were literally hundreds of flies swarming around my face to the point that I can't write and I don't think I have ever hated something more.  But, this is totally normal for them and the Maasai actually like when there are a lot of flies because that means there is a lot of milk to go around.  So slapping at them or setting up some sort of swatting system = completely inappropriate.  So, barely breathing, letting flies go up my nose and in my eyes, being made fun of for speaking swahili, followed by the general family appearance really wraps it up.

Forever, I will appreciate that there aren't that many flies at my camp on Moyo Hill and I am realizing just how much of a culture shock it will be to return to the U.S.  You mean women's breasts flying around, flies eating your eyes, people mumbling things in other languages while laughing at you, and drawing a crowd because I'm white isn't normal?