Mama Chiku Wears Jeans!

A lot has changed here at Kijabe in the six years since I was here last. For instance, there is now a gas station just outside the hospital compound at the end of the Kijabe road. The trash pits behind the houses have been filled in and replaced with terraced earth planted with African daisies, geraniums and bougainvillea (which, personally, I am thrilled about since the trash pits were the main attraction for the freaky bands of marauding monkeys that dangled from the eucalyptus trees in our backyard.) Ground has just been broken next to the hospital for quarters for the newly approved Orthopedic residency program--residents from Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and Cameroon will soon be training here. And a three story building with six apartments stands at the end of the upper row of medical staff housing, built two years ago to accommodate the 'short termers' (like us. In fact, we now occupy the apartment on the third floor and are fortunate enough to have what will be a stunning view out over the Rift Valley, as soon as it clears up.)

But, perhaps the most unexpected change has to do with Mama Chiku.

Mama Chiku owns a small restaurant (called 'Mama Chiku's Hotel') on the dirt road that borders the hospital compound. Her little place--where she serves traditional family style Kenyan meals and homemade samosas--has been a community hub for more than twenty years. Hers was the first place we visited yesterday and everything there is the same--the colorful outside wall, the interior packed with tables and plastic chairs, the baskets of mangoes, oranges and plantains, the photo portrait of President Kibaki hanging above the cash register, the local Kenyan women wrapped in their winter shawls drinking chai.

Everything is the same except Mama Chiku herself. Gone is her modified bee-hive hair style, replaced by a mod shorter cut complete with neat curls carefully arranged around her face. Gone are her wire-rimmed glasses, replaced, I assume, with contact lenses (she looks twenty years younger!) And gone is her ever-present red African batik-print dress. Replaced by a short-sleeved white cotton shirt and . . . are you ready for this? BLUE JEANS. I mean, really. Mama Chiku wearing blue jeans is about as shocking as Madonna in a girdle and support hose.

Rural Kenya has definitely been infiltrated by the scruffiness of the west (thank God!) As recently as a couple years ago, skirts and dresses were the only acceptable attire for post-pubertal females. Now, the women on medical staff wear slacks, it is apparently okay to roam the grounds of the compound wearing capris, and I'm told that even where we will travel tomorrow--over to Narok--I can wear long pants in the clinic. Can I tell you what a relief this is?

Yes indeed. Mama Chiku wears jeans. Finally.
(Photo to come . . .)

Photos: sign, Kijabe; Colobus monkeys, Kijabe; Mama Chiku's, Kijabe.