Tie-dying...the Kenyan way (posted by Ellen)

Try as we might to tune into the Kenyan culture, our own habits and ways of doing things often will surface unexpectedly. Certainly that was the case at our big tie-dye party yesterday afternoon! The American way to conduct such an activity is to have everything super-organized – we’re dealing with permanent dyes after all! – with the women and girls proceeding in an orderly fashion from station to station through the process of getting a shirt, tying it in rubber bands, dipping it in soda ash water, dying the shirt and bagging the shirt to carry home. Adults would defer to children – after all, we’ve all done these sorts of things before and can afford a little disappointment if the shirts run out before we get our turn. Very little attention would be given to the “tools” required – the pens for writing one’s name, the rubber bands for tying, the bags for carrying the wet shirts home.

What we learned yesterday is that, if you have never been given a t-shirt which came all the way from Indiana and has a cool insignia, or if you’ve never had access to rubber bands, Sharpies, and Zip-Loc bags, the orderly process falls into disarray pretty quickly! Everyone wants a piece of the action – NOW. On the one hand, it is easy to get frustrated with children pocketing rubber bands, until one realizes that for these children a rubber band is a real treasure. It is easy to make judgments about adults making sure they are at the front of the line, until one takes into account that the t-shirt represents inclusion in an esteemed group (the Global Interfaith Sisters) and no one wants to feel left out.

The six of us from Indiana were pretty worn out by the end of the tie-dye extravaganza! It was tempting to say that we would never try that sort of activity again. The process was too chaotic and difficult…and essentially illogical. Surely anyone can see that the American way of order is so much more effective?

Yet, at the end of the day, almost 200 women and girls (and quite a few boys and men) had been a part of a special community gathering which we were told was unlike anything that had happened before. New friendships were made, and there was a lot of conversation and laughter. And, in spite of the lack of organization, 125 women and girls went home with brightly-colored t-shirts!