Not long ago, my brother Alan and I went to my father’s office at UCLA to decide if a Danish sofa that had been there since 1970 was worth saving and to see how much stuff still needed to be cleared out. After 60 years UCLA finally wanted the office back and Dad, who has late-stage Parkinson’s disease, isn’t using it any more. The office was pretty empty. UCLA Archives had hung notes on a shelf and a drawer saying their review was complete. Whatever remained could be tossed. The bottom shelf of one bookcase was packed with decaying binders of Dad’s lecture notes and class material. Other shelves held stacks of manuscript reprints and folders full of mathematical musings. My father’s distinctive writing – confident, slightly slanted script and equations written in bold, black fountain pen – was evident everywhere.

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I haven’t posted in a while and I’d like to explain why. As Anne wrote in her last post, I had a health incident in January. Though it’s hard for a guy like me to admit, I fell apart. So, that is where I have been for a couple of months; wrapped up in myself with more than a tinge of self-pity. I tried to act normal, brave, and stoic around my friends as if everything was the same but was whimpering inside as I came to grips with my new reality.

THE FACTS

Last summer when I rode my bike somewhat vigorously, I noticed some chest pain but when I backed off on the effort, the pain receded. In January when riding in Los Angeles with Alan and Peter, two of my brothers-in-law, the chest pain came again but this time didn’t recede. This was a new phenomenon. I called my Minneapolis doctor and he suggested a visit to the emergency room. Next stop; UCLA Santa Monica Hospital (where I received excellent care by the way) to be checked out. They explained that I was suffering from the classic signs of angina and we needed more tests. Evidently, angina is caused by an artery that supplies blood to the heart muscle becoming partially blocked. Under normal conditions you don’t even realize it. The heart muscle has plenty of oxygen. When you physically exert yourself the heart muscle must work harder to supply blood to the rest of your body. When the heart ups its effort, it also needs more blood and oxygen. It is then that a restriction in blood flow is felt. There is just not enough oxygen getting to the heat muscle and chest pain results.

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Once upon a time, when our children were small and our budget even smaller, I was one of Santa’s elves. Around December 1st every year our bedroom door closed, the sewing machine came out and the kids were excluded from entry. “Santa needs help making all of those presents,” we told Marion and Richard. “He’s outsourced a lot of production to mommies and daddies around the world. You can’t go into our bedroom because Mommy is one of Santa’s elves.” The explanation seemed to satisfy the kids and they complied with the “do not enter” policy. Perhaps they thought that peeking would spoil their chances for a good Christmas haul.

The items created in my workshop relied heavily on cheap material and notions sourced from the S. R. Harris Fabric Warehouse where everything was always half price and if you had a special coupon they’d take an additional 20% off your purchase. Stuffed animals, dolls, doll clothes, pajamas, super hero costumes, Cabbage-Patch Kids, sleep-over sleeping bags and new winter coats rolled off my production line. I worked hard and tried to make things look “store-bought.” I was generally pretty pleased with the results and the Christmas tree was never empty.

In all those years I never really wondered what my poor but industrious elf counterparts were creating in other parts of the world. What types of toys did Santa order for the children in the jungles of Central America or Africa’s arid plains? What materials did the parent-elves there use to whip up their Christmas surprises? After 14 months living in northern Kenya, I have a pretty good idea. Santa recycles. African elves don’t have S. R. Harris. They have used plastic bottles, bottle caps, old tires, nails, strings, sticks and stones. They make some pretty cool stuff.

A stick, two large, bright orange bottle caps and two nails make a great push toy not unlike the ubiquitous corn-popper push toy that drives every American parent crazy. An old bicycle tire and a stick will keep a rambunctious boy occupied for hours and two sets of each will create a day of competition. Old rope is plentiful as are expanses of flat dirt, so jump-roping thrives. Kenyan school girls dream of following in the footsteps of the jumpers from Nairobi’s Kibera slums who speed stepped, Double Dutched, freestyled and jump-danced their way to the world jump-roping championships in Orlando.

And then there are the vehicles. Santa’s African elves can do a lot with an empty cooking oil bottle or a pint of whisky whose contents are gone, perhaps consumed in good cheer by the elf himself. A bottle, four bottle caps and four fasteners of any kind, combined together, make a car, a truck, a cart or a bus.

Merry Christmas
Anne and John Knapp

Back in September, had someone asked me to predict what would be the most frustrating part of our Kenya experience, I probably would have responded:

1. Our outdoor toilet,
2. The five hours it takes for a simple trip to the grocery store,
3. The mud and bugs during raining season, and
4. Flat tires.

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The men of the Westgate Samburu clan progress through life in broad, age-grouped cohorts. Around puberty the boys are circumcised and graduate from children to warriors (moran). Ten years later they advance and become junior elders. Their final promotion comes as they enter early middle age and assume the role of senior elders. Each stage is accompanied by an elaborate ceremony with age-appropriate rituals ranging from having their foreskins sliced by machete to rewarding wives with perfectly roasted cuts of beef. As the day of celebration approaches, people assemble from miles around at a location designated by the elders. An enormous acacia boma (corral) is created and a temporary city built inside of sticks, mud, corrugated metal, plastic sacks and grass. Each family is assigned a spot where they construct their huts (manyattas) and erect small acacia bomas to house their goats and sheep. Once the party starts there are four days of socializing, chanting, singing, dancing, slaughtering livestock, eating and drinking. These are celebrations that occur at rare intervals. If you are invited, you go.

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Guest Post by Julie Curtis

When I was little, I made gowns out of my bath towels. I tied them over one shoulder and belted them with bathrobe ties. Or I wrapped them around my chest or waist to make a strapless dress or a skirt. Then I would top the whole thing off with an elegant cape-style towel.

The results, it turns out, would have been a lot prettier if I had grown up in Africa and used khangas instead of towels. Khangas are big oversized sarong-y rectangles of lightweight cloth, printed in at least three bright colors with some wild pattern. Some of them even have sayings on them in Swahili that translate roughly into fortune cookie prophecies, like “you gossip about everything” and “you have not yet met the person who will tell you what you need to know.”

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I changed the format of the Bird Page and renamed it the “Bird Gallery.” I hope you like the change.

After much prodding we have finally added a subscribe feature. If you look at the bottom of the right sidebar you will find a “Subscribe” button. Enter your e-mail address and press subscribe and you will get an e-mail whenever we make a new post.

We hope this makes it easier for you.

In my first blog post about the beaded women of northern Kenya (A Shameless Pitch, November 10, 2013), I observed that “pastoralist women are neither empowered nor liberated.” Last week I discovered how quickly empowerment can occur given some economic leverage and I experienced the independent and determined nature of these pastoralist people.

The women bead crafters in Kalama and Sera went on strike. They refused to sell NRT the beadwork we had ordered.

When you envision such a strike, erase the image of placard-carrying, protest-chanting union workers. Replace it with rail-thin, ebony women, a quarter of whom have babies swaddled on their backs, dressed in a cacophony of brightly colored kanga (long pieces of cloth) and elaborate beading from head to toe. In the dust, underneath an acacia tree they cluster around a single, besieged man and alternate between staccato, hand-waving complaints and stony, expressionless stares. Despite obvious poverty, they will not part with their strings of beaded bracelets, key rings and coasters.

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Anne and I will not be posting this week. I am in San Diego, California and Anne will be joining me on Tuesday. We are here for my father’s funeral. Dad passed away last Tuesday, 11/12/2013, at 11:15 pm. He was 88 and had lived a good life.

Leland Mattice Knapp Was born in Washington State and raised in Portland, Oregon. After joining the Navy he was stationed in Corpus Christy, Texas, where he met his wife of 66 years, Gloria Janice Morgan. He is survived by Gloria, six children, nine grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren.

After a 20 year career in the navy he attained the rank of Master Chief. In 1965 he retired from the Navy and found a new passion as an electronics technician working in High energy physics at the University Of California at San Diego, retiring again in 1988.

Dad was a strong, gentle man with an inquiring mind and an interest in nearly everything. He will be missed.