Signage

I love signs. I love what they represent, and I love when they are poorly conceived. Slogans too. Paradise is a sign with a slogan (hey, I'm easy to please). In foreign countries, humorous signs abound, especially when the natives are attempting English. Naturally, Kenya is no exception. It's clear that they go to great lengths to come up with catchy names and slogans for display, but their lack of familiarity with our language just comes up comical. I'm sure that if I tried to display my name and slogan in Swahili, I'd look a bit foolish too. I take pictures of signs left and right. They're not good pictures, by any stretch, but they have interesting and humorous content. Often they wind up getting deleted in order to make space for other pictures that are actually worthy of display, so I can't be too certain which ones I've managed to keep. I can't help but wonder what it would mean to take the proprietors at their word for many of these. "Happy Emporium". It looked like they just had furniture, but it's fun to entertain the idea that inside is a magical world like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (or Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, which most of you are probably less familiar with). "Promise Shop" where, apparently, you can purchase little pieces of assurance. "The White House". The fact that it wasn't completely white clearly indicates that affairs of state must be under deliberation within those walls. "Computer Support: We Trust in God". I assume that, when having computer trouble in Africa, maintaining a healthy trust in God is about all you can do about it. Even large institutions like the Kenya Cooperative Bank are not immune. Their slogan is "We Are You." Uh, I beg to differ. I'm sure that many Kenyans would too. How many of us, even in Africa, truly find our identity in our financial institution?

It seems that every shack on the side of the road in the most rural parts of Kenya claims to be either a cafe, hotel, or butchery. These makeshift, miniature log cabin lean-tos clearly don't have the facilities to heat up coffee, let alone offer lodging for any wayward travelers. Most of them are funny just for this reason alone, but a few have the intestinal fortitude to give themselves names. In their defense, most of the establishments with names longer than "hotel" or "cafe" are made out of concrete, but that's about the only difference I could see. There was the "Metropolitan Hotel" which boasted that it was "A Resort Hotel for - Lords." In addition to the ridiculous appeal to royalty, I'm not sure where the dash comes from. Maybe Emily Dickinson wrote their slogan. I never did have much confidence in her anyway. We passed an establishment called "Caravan Hotel/Butchery". Stay at your own risk. Upon seeing "Imani Butchery", I laughed aloud. "Imani" means "faith" in Swahili, so pray a lot before you go buy your meat, and you'll just have to trust that it is what they say it is. My favorite, however, was "Dolphin Butchery". I really wanted to go in and ask if their dolphin was tuna safe. Even churches are suspect. In downtown Nairobi, you'll find the "Nairobi Happy Church". Don't you just feel better already? And the best? "Kingdom Fellowship: The Church ON Purpose". At least we can surmise that they really really mean it, although I'm not sure what that says about the rest of us who just tripped and fell into the church.

The most overwhelming form of signage, however, is found painted or taped onto the side doors and back windows of the taxis. These nissan mini-busses are all basically the same, white with yellow stripes down the sides, but they are all decorated to the hilt, and each one has a name in the back window. "Bomber." "Queen Liza". "Storm Over Paradise". "Neptune". "Where the HOOD At?" (check the front of the car, knucklehead). Many of them are spiritually themed. "Priesthood". "Psalms 150". "God's Timing" (I'm definitely in favor of God's timing, but I'd still like to get there with some degree of expediency, thanks). Ed said that this is also common in the Philippines, where they plaster scripture and spiritual jargon on their cabs as a superstition, apparently to ward off evil spirits. We wondered if the same was true here. At the very least, I presume that the names on the back windows have very little real, impactful meaning to the drivers.

Signs are interesting that way. Their intended nature is the denotation of a larger principle or idea. Yet, we lose the larger meaning so often. Words are signs too. When I say "platypus", it signifies something to you whether your mental image of a platypus is correct or not. In Bungoma today, there was a troupe of youngsters (Would it be a pack? A pod? A gaggle?) that followed me around obsessed with calling out, "Howahyoo! Howahyoo!" Any time I would respond, "I'm fine, thanks, how are you?" they would simply continue their chant. They had no idea what it meant. After a while, I caved, and just repeated it back to them. They literally said it over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, until it just became white noise in the background while I was engaged conversation or picture taking. Cute. Annoying, but cute.

We do that, don't we? We lose meaning all the time. Many of our signs no longer signify anything to us. In fact, I think our guilt is greater, because we used to know what the signs meant, and lost the meaning out of simple repetition, rather than out of ignorance. We gloss over signs just like you glossed over all of those "over and overs" I typed. The words stopped being language to you, didn't they? They became pattern. (It's ok, you can go back and read each and every one just so you can tell me later that you did.) How many times have you responded "Fine thanks, how are you?" when someone has only greeted you with "Hello"? No longer do we need even a chorus of "Howahyoo!" to be prompted to our conditioned, robotic responses. The divide between those children and us is smaller than we'd like to admit. And we wonder why religion doesn't work for us. We wonder why we still feel empty after we go to church, pray, read the Word, and take communion over and over and over again. Stop. When you engage in something meaningful, take time to notice. That's relationship. Any relationship can become ritualistic, but when you're mindful of what you're doing, and who with, you'll find that meaning remains fresh. Not only fresh, but new. If you're still having trouble, I recommend a trip to Africa.