130827 — Holy Crap…
…it’s almost September. Where did the last ten years go?
Irina Bernebring Journiette
Live. Do. Laugh. Explore. Dance. Love. Fall. Write. Scream. Enjoy. Dare. Go.
2013/07/10
130710 — Is the end only a new beginning?
It’s done. I’m finished. Mabrook to me. “Theater as the Elicitive Third Space: How Theater for Development has been used to prevent violence in Kenya.”
2013/06/20
130620 – Reminiscing a wonderful childhood.
“The very last house stood all by itself under a dark green wall of fir-trees, and here the wild country really began. Snufkin walked faster and faster straight into the forest. Then the door of the last house opened a chink and a very old voice cried: ‘Where are you off to?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Snufkin replied.”
From the moomins about the need to not always know where one is going. From this splendid list of fifty things the moomins taught us about the world.
2013/05/07
130507–A long awaited post?
I’ve been absent and absent minded. Or not…not absent minded, focused on other things. Thesis-writing almost got the best of me. I almost perished among theories and drowned in the abstract waves of my own mind. But alas, I’ve avoided the dark abyss of overindulging in self-hatred and critique (and too much Vodka) and so come midnight I will turn in a first draft and safely paddle my way back to the shores of non-thesis writing for a while.
2013/02/04
130204–Nairobi by Night
This city has grown on me. And after spending the weekend exploring Nairobi by Night I’m slowly falling in love. It’s true what is said, “it’s always the people that makes a place” and here, here you have them all. I always find it fascinating to discover which individuals who decide to settle (even so only for a little while) in a place. Spent Friday in a gin and tequila induced haze managing complex reflections on the fascination of death and euphoria of euphoria. Saturday establishing new friendships. And Sunday watching Django. So far people are intriguing and so, the space is intriguing and so, this place is intriguing!
2013/01/30
130130–Disconnected Yet Again.
It 14.14 and it’s raining in Nairobi. Perhaps not as much raining as it’s pouring down. The power comes and goes. The infrastructure inept to handle water punching it’s way down onto earth. I eat watermelon and bounce around my room on a purple ball. There’s no need to stress. I look out my window at the blue sky. How strange. In the distance I hear thunder and the sound of our neighbors generator. My wireless icon flashes: “Not Connected. No Connections Available.” That means that the power is out in the entire block. I hope the power will return before it’s dark.
I’m posting this at 19.07. The power is finally back on.
2013/01/22
130122–Feeling Powerless?
Today was powerless. And by powerless I don’t mean as in the kind of power you can have over other individuals or over structural issues, but lacking of actual power–the electric currency that animates my life. Without it my entire existence is almost rendered useless. I know that might be seen as a tragic reality of our post-modern and perhaps post-natural society but seriously, how do I go about my day if I can’t use the internet, charge my laptop or my phone? Or even turn the light switch on? (I know, I have a flashlight, but still. And my flashlight wont help the fact that my food slowly spoils in the useless fridge).
Luckily for me I know that the power will be turned back on soon again, so I just wait. And wait. Today I waited for seven hours. Last time I waited for two. It’s strange that the power fails almost on cue when I have something important to do online. And it is strange that I’ve been able to accumulate such an addiction to electricity without even realizing it. But it’s even more strange how quickly I get used to the waiting. Ten or twenty minutes there, an hour one day, five the next. That the lacking of power, even though annoying, reminds me that there are other things, non-electrical, that I can enjoy. So I lay down on the balcony and read a book. And I make pancakes to use up my milk so it doesn’t spoil and I make up the recipe as I go along because I only remember bits and pieces of it. And I become adventurous and explore a new matatu-route and go to the market and buy fruits. It’s like the everyday power-shortages have become small breaks in my electronic and automated life of thesis-writing.
2013/01/21
130121–Zebras, Zebra-ass!
Spent the weekend camping by Lake Navaisha and exploring Hells Gate National Park.
2013/01/14
130114–Pictures!
It’s an election year in Kenya. Ryan looks out the window as someone outside is holding a political rally. Everyone remembers what happened during the last election. No one knows what’s going to happen this time.
Patty and Mya pose for a pitcure.
Mya loves posing for pictures but as I soon discover also taking pictures.
She also loves dancing.
Reyna listens as her aunt Lydia plays a song.
Sophie and I head down to the marked to grind some maize to make the traditional dish of ugali.
It’s saturday and the market, sokoni, is quite crowded.
Here in the clothes part of the market Sophie tells me that most clothes we donate or get rid off in “the west” ends up.
All the kids take me up to the roof top of their building to watch the sun set over Kibera.
A view from the roof top.
Best friends who loves to pose for pictures.
Playing at the roof top in an old water tank.
Irina Bernebring Journiette 