Heartbreak

Wake up. Scroll through the news. Find out how many more innocent people were killed by Israeli Occupation Forces at a food collection point. Cry. A faint glimmer of hope. A ceasefire, they say? Get excited. Sure, it’s not international acknowledgement of statehood but at least the murdering might stop for a moment. Find out the talks have broken down. Return to gloom. You know Israel wasn’t going to honour the ceasefire anyway.

Spend hours watching interviews of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition activists aboard the Madleen. Listen to Greta speak with a clarity of thought that lifts your spirits even as tears well up in your eyes. Notice that she’s making it very clear that there are no weapons onboard, that we’re peaceful volunteers carrying baby formula and medicine. Almost as if she expects Israel to attack, kill and justify its actions by claiming weapons were found, which for some reason the world would just believe. Cry at the thought of Greta being aware that she might be killed in this attempt to reach Gaza but going ahead anyway probably because she figures her reputation as an activist will coerce governments into action if she’s killed. Cry at her love for humanity.

Bemoan your inaction. Bemoan your silence. What can I do? What is there to do to dismantle this seemingly impenetrable war machine? Deep breaths. Try to redirect your thoughts towards things that are within your reach, within your ability to influence. You understand tech. Tech is an integral, toxic part of this machine - the eyes and ears of the beast. Helping people reduce their dependence on big tech weakens its ability to aid genocide. Assert to yourself, yes, it’s not much and it does not make a difference in the current situation, but it’s a step in the right direction, long-term.

Realise that you want it all to be over. Just darkness and silence, please. You want to look away, you realise, and you do, skipping past those videos and articles. No more visuals of crying, emaciated children with their ribs jutting out. You can’t bear it. Especially not when you’re tucking into your organic lentil soup. You’re looking for something “light” to keep you company as you eat.

A break from the news. But you know it’s there, you know it’s happening. Your friends tell you of their grief, the latest round of slaughter. At the supermarket, you notice a gloved employee nonchalantly and briskly unloading large chunks of meat. Your scarred mind immediately leaps to visuals of a “refugee” camp in Gaza. Is that what it looks like in the aftermath of an “air raid”, you wonder?

Your social interactions are fraught. Tense. A new acquaintance merely alluding to Israel’s claims over Palestinian land makes you recoil. Disbelief. Are there really people out there who can find a way to rationalise Israel’s actions? Withdraw from the conversation and the acquaintance. Engaging in conversation and countering their claims would be the right thing to do, you agree, but you need what’s left of your will and resolve to function.

Rage. Rage against others who don’t seem to care. Rage against the apathy and cruelty. But you’re familiar with this rage, of course. You’re vegan, and most of your friends are not. Every dinner plate is a demonstration of apathy. But ultimately, you recognise that the rage is just a front for the deep disappointment and frustration with yourself and your impotence. Your inability, like the inability of millions around the world, to stop the genocide.

How much longer? What has this done to our humanity? How many millions of people around the world are devastated by living, continuing to live, in the epoch of a televised genocide?

What is the collective weight of this grief, this heartbreak?

Alt title: How I learned to feel and embraced conflict as an opportunity for growth

What’s your earliest memory of being frustrated or angry but not being able or knowing how to express yourself?

Mine is probably after I said something to my sister, or did something to her things (that part is blurry, but I remember as a child I had a phase when I revelled in smashing/throwing/tearing up the things that meant something to her, like an Archie’s greeting card (remember those? Is that still a thing?) or gift given to her by a friend), immediately recognising at the sight of her tears that I’d done something “wrong”, finding a place to hide (sometimes literally in a closet 🤪), and feeling a wave of intense emotions I didn’t have words for at the time, trembling with the intensity of what I now recognise to be regret and embarrassment for the harm I’d caused, and shame and anger at my own behaviour.

But then, growing up in a South Asian working single-parent-ish household, there was never a conversation about what I’d done, why I’d done it, or how I felt about it later. Only condemnation and judgement that I’d been “bad” and “cruel”. It became the norm to simply dismiss how I felt and pretend like the incident had never happened, even if I was a bit sheepish and unwilling to make eye contact when I eventually emerged from the closet and saw my sister at dinnertime. And, over time, an internalisation of some of the judgements. Perhaps I was a bad person, child-me concluded.

Toxic masculinity, queer edition

Cut to being a young adult, and its distinct swirl of confusion and anxieties over one’s role in the world, gender identity, masculinity and sexuality. There is a strain of masculinity out there, certainly widely prevalent in India, that identifies itself with being emotionless. As in, completely devoid of emotions. All emotions are the realm of women. Men, real men (by which I mean straight, of course), feel no emotion and are driven purely by reason.

When you’re overwhelmed and unable to cope with the immensity of the weight of the world and the questions it’s throwing at you, a supposed pathway of escaping emotions altogether can be very tempting. Emotions are for other, lesser, people, not me, I decided. People who cry at airports as they say goodbye to a loved one? Weak.

If you’re inclined towards intellectualising your choices, you might even reach for the self-description “stoic”, in a terribly misguided (but somewhat common?) interpretation of stoicism.

The cost of avoiding your feelings

Given that it’s something we do every day, you’d think we’d be taught how to communicate with each other, but sadly no, that’s not the kind of schooling most of us go through. And so it is that you learn to keep your discomfort to yourself, instead indulging in heaping judgements upon the “perpetrator”, the person “responsible” for your frustrations.

If you’re conditioned to be “nice”, you might keep the judgements to yourself, just swilling them about in your mind. But if you’ve fully internalised the judgement that you’re a “bad” person as I had, you might choose to air them out (which dovetails neatly with the “masculine” trait of being “direct” regardless of the consequences), or worse, stockpile them and weaponise them during fights.

No surprise then that my interpersonal relationships suffered greatly in my twenties, people taken aback by the harshness of my judgements while receiving no feedback whatsoever how/whether I valued their presence in my life, words that perhaps might have offset the judgements.

But I reserved the harshest judgements for a special recipient - me. Try as I did to convince myself that I felt no emotions, that I was an automaton, my bipolar depressive episodes came and went, and a nasty inner voice unleashed a vortex of judgements upon myself. On the days when I was a crying mess, unable to get out of bed, I’d tell myself that I was being “lazy”, “ungrateful” for all the choices, comforts and things I had that others did not (third-world survivor’s guilt much?)

Enter NVC

A few years ago, I joined a group that met up weekly to practise nonviolent communication (NVC), the communication framework developed by Marshall Rosenberg.

NVC prescribes a Rumi-esque judgement-free approach to communication that goes beyond right or wrong, asking its practitioners to instead focus on

1. Observations - Given a situation, who said/did what?
   If the incident were on video, what would it show, making sure to avoid interpretations/evaluations of the incident (“He arrived 30 minutes after the agreed-upon meeting time” vs “He disrespected me”).

2. Feelings - What do you feel?
   Without resisting or judging your feelings as positive, negative, productive or unhelpful, acknowledge the feelings you’re experiencing, whether that’s happiness, anger, jealousy, excitement, regret, or disappointment. NVC calls out false feelings such as “disrespected” as interpretations. See feelings inventory if you need a little prompting.

3. Needs - Taking stock of your feelings, what needs of yours were met or not met?
   NVC posits that underneath each feeling lies a set of needs that is met or not met. In case of a person showing up 30 minutes after the agreed-upon meeting time, you might feel angry because your needs for consideration and communication were not met. And/or disappointed because your needs for (self-)organisation and structure were not met. See needs list

4. Requests/actions - Based on the awareness of your unmet neds, are there any requests you’d like to make of the other person to have your needs met?
   Knowing your unmet needs, are there requests you’d like to make of the other person so that your needs can be met?

(I’ve described these steps from the perspective of one’s own feelings and needs, but the process involves listening to everyone involved with empathy, devoid of preconceptions and judgements, and acknowledging their feelings and needs).

At first, I felt awkward (and often struggled) to talk about my feelings in the group, let alone talk about my feelings and needs with others who were unaware of NVC (Try being the only one on Slack typing out sentences in the format “When you did X, I felt Y because my need for Z was [not] met” 😅). But over months and years, the awkwardness has faded away and in its place is a deep sense of gratitude for this communication framework. A friend once joked that I sounded like I’d joined a cult because of the number of times I mentioned NVC in one conversation 😅

Conflict as opportunity

Now that I am no longer running away from my feelings, I look at conflict as an opportunity to deepen interpersonal relationships and work together to meet our needs, whether with friends, family or at work.

To use a recent example, I’m currently volunteering at a farm. I arrived here after establishing with the owner that I have a theoretical understanding of permaculture and its concepts from watching videos and reading books, and want to gain practical experience.

When we were working on a swale (a permaculture technique of digging a trench on a slope to capture rainwater and prevent soil erosion), I said to the owner, “Hey, my understanding from watching Geoff Lawton’s videos on swales is that trees are essential to swales and yet we don’t seem to have any here. Why are we doing things differently?”

She replied, “Open your mind! The design of swales varies depending on the terrain and the elements involved”.

The words “Open your mind” rang in my ears, and I wasn’t sure how I felt in the moment. But I stayed silent, continued to work on the swale according to her instructions, checked in with myself and recognised that I felt….irritated. Why? Because her words “Open your mind” carried the implication that I wasn’t open to swale designs other than the ones I was familiar with. I thought about it and realised that I was irritated because my need for clarity (over her swale design) was unmet.

Some fifteen minutes after the incident, I decided to address it. I followed the four steps of NVC and said, “When you said ‘open your mind’ in response to my question about why we aren’t planting any trees, I felt irritated because my need for clarity was not met. I still don’t know why we didn’t plant trees. Are you willing to explain that?”. To her credit, she acknowledged that she’s open to questions, that saying “open your mind” didn’t add to the discussion, and proceeded to explain her thinking behind the swale design! I felt relieved that the conversation had met my need for clarity, and happy and reassured that she was willing to explain her thinking in detail. This factored into my decision to stay on at the farm longer than I’d initially planned.

Bonus: No more self-flagellation

Another profound change since I started incorporating NVC into how I talk with others is that I (mostly) no longer have a nasty inner voice. Even when I’m the midst of a depressive episode and not quite myself, I can acknowledge what I’m feeling, enumerate my needs and give myself grace to rest, or entertain myself with mindless TV. Gone are the days of wielding the whip of judgements!

For the first time in ten years, I marked one whole year (and counting) living in the same country thanks to Covid, and while I’ve enjoyed liberties in Kenya (open restaurants, only one major lockdown and few restrictions, few cases until recently) that many around the world are still waiting to get back, I find myself longing to escape to Europe.

Of course, the Europe in my mind is completely untouched by Covid, there are no restrictions, all art spaces are active, you can drink a beer by the river, it’s springtime and sunny, and you can travel as you please, because that’s how I last saw it :)

Trigger warning: Privileged person whining about the hardships of others

The relentlessness of Kenyan inequality can be hard to bear at times - I’ve been trying to explore the streets of Kisumu by bike, venturing into neighbourhoods and streets I don’t usually take. Cycling by the lake wearing my $30 helmet and seeing parts of people’s houses flooded after heavy rains, and kids collecting water from filthy ditches or the lake in distinct yellow jerry cans while someone else washes their motorbike a few metres away makes me want to give up.

You’d think India would’ve inured me to the injustices of poverty and poor infrastructure, but I’ve realised India is quite good at ghettoising its poor, politely tucking them away in long-forgotten parts of towns and cities that are avoided by anyone who can afford to do so, certainly politicians. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the wealthy have managed to outspend, gentrify and shut out the poor from “their” neighbourhoods. The segregation seems less stark to me here in Kenya.

A few days after I moved into my apartment, someone rang the doorbell - It was a shy young woman, probably in her late teens. She seemed very uncomfortable and struggled to say, “I would be grateful to you if I could have any work to do in your house - cleaning the floor, and doing your dishes and laundry?”.

What was I to say? It looks like it’s common to have housekeepers in Kenya, but it makes me very uncomfortable, not just because of the risks of catching Covid and the dubious ethics of paying someone to clean up after me, but also I get nervous at the very thought of strangers coming into my private space and having nowhere to hide while they’re around, possibly for hours (The joys of living with anxiety!). With a lot of guilt and fully aware that I might be cutting off an opportunity for her to make a few hundred Kenyan shillings a week, I declined.

Such moral conundrums are an everyday occurrence - Last month, I stepped out to get some bananas from a nearby supermarket, and as I walked past an empty plot, I saw a woman sitting at a small folding table with no shade, selling eggs, fried meat and bananas. A child played in the dirt nearby. The sun was setting after a hot day, and the bananas were well on their way to brown. I felt torn - I had stepped out just to get bananas, and I could support the woman and her child by buying bananas from her knowing that the bananas would go bad within a day, or go to the supermarket and buy less ripe ones. I kept walking (with only a tiny bit of hyperventilating), but it was a tough choice. Everyday, very real tests of Kant’s categorial imperative take their toll. All the bananas I’ve bought since then have been from her though (and the nearly brown bananas must have just been due to a bad day - the bananas have been great since then)! :)

Is it possible to respect your own values and preferences and still find a way to help others that doesn’t involve paying for things or services you don’t need, or simply handing people a wad of cash?

I know it’s pure escapism, but I’m craving a respite from guilt for a bit. It would be a dream to be in a place where there might still be plenty of inequality but not the kind that leads to extreme starvation or deprives people of basic infrastructure or access to healthcare. Where the crunch of a snail on a bike path getting crushed under my bike wheels despite my best efforts to avoid it is the only source of guilt pangs. Where I’m not constantly aware of my privilege.

I never thought I’d think fondly of places where, among many xenophobic incidents, someone called me a terrorist, pointed at my blinking red bike light and made the gesture of a bomb blast :D

I’ve written about the pollution caused by poor waste management and garbage burning before. That was spurred by an organisation I live near that burnt all kinds of stuff (dry leaves, carton boxes, and sometimes industrial waste I’m sure) everyday! I was sick of having to keep my windows shut all the time, so I called them one day and reminded them that it was illegal to burn garbage according to NEMA regulations. The person I spoke to claimed ignorance of any garbage burning within their compound, wanted to know how I knew of their (non-existent) burning, was I perhaps mistaken in thinking it was their compound burning garbage and not the next one, and eventually wanted to give me someone else’s phone number so I could talk to them about this issue. I refused, saying it wasn’t any of my business to talk to someone else, and that I just wanted to remind them that they shouldn’t be exposing everyone around them to fumes everyday. We exchanged phone numbers, and that was it. I wasn’t expecting much from the call, but…it worked! They have since stopped burning garbage. I’m not sure what’s happening to all of it now (I sincerely hope they’re using a garbage service that recycles and/or uses an incinerator and that I haven’t just demonstrated NIMBY behaviour), but there’s one fewer compound I have to worry about as a source of smoke.

I’m surprised that all it took was a phone call! Had I known that before, I wouldn’t have spent weeks psyching myself up to call them, arming myself with facts and preparing responses to imagined questions, not to mention how to put pressure on them (social media? legal notice?) should the call fail to do anything :) Now that I know it can be as simple as making a phone call, I feel unleashed, looking for other opportunities to get organisations, as a start, in Kisumu to do better!

That said, I was somewhat ashamed of myself at one point during the call - The person on the phone wanted to know my phone number (I was passed through to them via the receptionist), and the first thought that came to my mind was “Am I putting myself in danger by sharing my phone number?”. Thanks to mpesa, it’s easy to look up anyone’s full name if you have their Kenyan phone number. Would the organisation find it easier or more cost-effective to shut me up than to deal with the daily garbage burning? I went ahead and gave them my phone number, but I had to remind myself that if it comes to it, I have the resources to deal with any problems the organisation might try to create for me. Made me think of environmentalists who risk their lives to wage year-long campaigns against mining giants and illegal loggers - If a simple thing like calling someone out on garbage burning can make me feel at risk of harm (it’s hard to say if that was paranoia or a legitimate threat), the folks fighting the real battles must be constantly aware of the danger they’re in and yet find a way to put their fears aside and continue to do the work they do ♥

Kisumu is undergoing a major transformation - Preparing to host the Africities summit in November 2021 April 2022, the county government has been setting up public infrastructure, building footpaths (with rumours of bike paths! 😍), the construction of a new market complex (although the demolition of open-air markets before the launch of the new market has not gone down well with small-scale traders already hit hard by COVID) and even the revival of a colonial-era railway line. I’m excited to see what the city will look like later this year!

The air pollution problem

Kisumu’s air quality has gone completely unnoticed in this effort to “upgrade” the city. As I write this, Kisumu’s air quality index is hovering at 99, considered poor in most parts of the world. I wish I had known when I was moving into an apartment building that with the nice views of the hills in the distance, I’d also have to deal with the noxious fumes of burning garbage from nearby compounds burning dry leaves, or a few days’ worth of food, plastic and other waste. Running to the windows and closing them shut at the first whiff of burning garbage has become an unfortunate necessity. I’ve noticed I wake up with a sore throat or stuffy nose if I leave the bedroom window open all night.

Burning is the predominant form of waste management in Kenya, and notwithstanding National Environment Management Authority’s claim that burning of waste must be undertaken in a licenced incinerator, dumping garbage in a heap (either in a designated corner within one’s own compound or in a public field) and setting fire to it is a common sight in the evenings (Not wanting to breathe in the fumes is my current excuse for giving up on running in the evenings). It’s not much better using a garbage collection service - The building uses one, and chatting with the garbage collector, I found out that the collected garbage does not undergo segregation of any kind and all of it is burnt (I have no reason to think he meant incinerated and not just burnt in an open field on the outskirts of town).

At a time when WHO estimates that 7 million people die every year due to air pollution, of which 1 million are from the African continent, it doesn’t seem to me like there’s a national conversation on air pollution. The adverse effects of ambient air pollution are well established, and I think Kisumu has a great opportunity to address the pollution issue as the city continues to grow.

Reality

According to the City of Kisumu’s own Kisumu Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan (KISWaMP) strategy document (PDF), garbage collection rates are abysmal - In a city that produces 385 tons of waste every day, only 25% is effectively collected. The figures are worse for household waste - Only 3.1% of household waste is collected for garbage disposal. While the strategy document defines lofty goals for 2020 and 2030 including planning ahead for the growth of the city and decommissioning the Kachok dumpsite, its implementation is far from reality.

Here’s an idea

With a little financial help from international partners, I think Kisumu county could set up its own free citywide garbage collection service. On its own, or with the help of community based organisations and nonprofits, the county administration can widen access to proper garbage disposal to all parts of the city. The strategy document reveals willingness to use a disposal service and to learn segregation methods, which can be taught through community outreach programs.

Given that 65 - 70% of waste in Kisumu is estimated to be decomposable, organic materials, composting would significantly reduce the volume of garbage to be processed and transported to incinerators or landfills.

Why?

• Clean air, water and soil: Improvement in the air quality, and reduction in the pollutants in the water (due to open dumping in the lake) and leachates in the soil would lead to better health outcomes and a lower healthcare expenditure burden on the county government over time.
• Employment: 41% of people aged between 18 and 34 in Kisumu were unemployed, according to the 2019 census data. That was before COVID, so I can’t imagine how dire the situation must be nowadays (A few months ago, I saw about forty people queueing outside an office to apply for a security guard position!). Setting up a new waste management program, or supporting community based organisations in various estates/settlements of Kisumu could create hundreds of jobs!
• Fertilizer: Compost is a great fertilizer. Composting organic waste and selling the compost to farmers at a nominal rate and conducting programs to increase awareness of compost use would be a self-sustaining source of revenue for the county’s garbage collection service and hopefully lead to better yield for farmers?
• Aesthetically pleasing: Assuming improved access leads to a reduction in illegal dumping of waste in public fields, trenches and highways, Kisumu would be able to position itself as a clean, progressive city with a long-term vision.