Culture Shock

So I am Kenyan married to a Kenyan… then I am Kamba ish married to a Kamba who’s more Kamba than me but less Kamba than me still. You’d think we wouldn’t have cultural shocks so often. I feel like I have a new cultural shock to deal with every other week! From small things to how I prefer to spend my before bed hours with the kids… that shock their daddy to big things like the ‘respectful’ distance around our family that I am told I should be thankful for but it makes me feel lonely and on the border of taking it as proof of high dislike, which gets complicated. See, in my mother’s house, we were physically, emotionally, mentally, socially and any other ‘-ally’ loved in very present, in-your-face, tangible way. There was never any space for doubt. From my mother and my aunties and their friends… I got married to a place where I think people like their space and there is pride in how good they are because of the space they give each other. I hate it. I try to get it, but I don’t really get it. The closest ‘getting it’ I get is that this is just what they know and that possibly my very present, tangible everyday attempts at building something might be seen as needy and nosey. Thank God for my University’s insistence on cultural studies for all undergrads! Who knew a day would come when Mrs Ng’ang’as lectures would ring so clearly in my ears.

Despite the ability to understand the dynamics at play. I do feel very lonely at times where what I know and expect is a very warm and bustl-ey presence. My littlest, whom we will call Ovals (look for my mother and ask her where that came from, I don’t know), was born when my mummy and the main mother-hen in my life. I was an emotional wreck alone, in an atmosphere where I got courteous love and I had no choice but to deal with it. Mummy was too far away to run to.

Now my mummy, half-way around the world picked up on this feeling and was huffing and puffing her indignation at her baby girl being treated less than she was used to. (In the time she was away a new respect for maternal intuition grew, woman read me like a book through less than 2 minutes on the phone!) Oh she was mad. See my mama in law is a rule stickler so she takes the in law part seriously and graciously (it would be nice to drop the in-law part but to each their own in love). My mother, where a relationship is concerned… rules are as foreign as pea-soup at the bottom of the sea on a sharks banqueting table. Can you see the potential for all out war?

Making love... 

So again I thank Daystar for forcing us all to go through INS because without that basic appreciation and understanding of different cultures from micro to macro levels. I think I’d be one of the women on facebook forever whining about horrible in-laws. Thanks to INS though, I’ve been able to step back and appreciate the differences. I can’t say I’ve figured out a way to graciously maneuver through them beyond keeping away when my anger and hurt blinds my rationality (there’s only one person who can handle THAT storm) to the point that my tongue bypasses the brain, but I just thank God for a patient husband who’s teaching me how to swim these strange waters.

Before I finish, I just have to say. I think this is why marriage is such a big deal to God. God wants us to learn to forever get over ourselves, as individuals, as families, as communities, as populations… to just get over ourselves and learn to constantly appreciate the differences that define us. When god finished with his work of creation he said, ‘It is good.’ We need to get to that level where we see Gods creation in totality, enough to say it is good.