Habari Za Potea?

Feeling lost, totally alone, misunderstood and needing interpretation were the impetus for my blog explorations. First, I started searching, for what, I guess someone who could relate. I started with Lamu, then swahili, kiswahili, mombasa, mswahili . . . not much, at least nothing like me. I was trying to find a practicing swahili women living in the states. Why? I spent two years of my life speaking (or at least trying) kiswa, eating chapati and pilau, cooking with women, washing my clothes with omo (hanging undies in descrete places), attending weddings (practicing my chakacha in the mirror), wearing totally outdated brightly colored clothes with beads and ruffles, walking around with kangas, grinding coconuts making milk, drinking chai (not chai tea), avoiding malaria, getting malaria, riding in matatus, dodging donkeys and now all of this seems rather mythical. I have tried tirelessly to find swahili women from Lamu, Mombasa or Ingujah to visit with practice some kiswa sitting on the floor with the edge of one foot wedged between the big toe and the next of the other foot, picking our teeth with a broken piece of Makuti after a wonderful lunch of Sakuma wiki, pilau na buzi and mandazi. Were are you Fatma's, Asha's, Mwanamina's and Mariamu -ay's? All that I have met over here have trading in their bui bui's for tight pants, music videos and around-the-way-girl vernaculars. Naa meeen? Actually, I don't. Sometimes, I want a little piece of Kenya, siyo?