Doug Clark: Pulei crosses cultural gap to give back

As I motored downtown Friday for a lunch interview with Moses Pulei (pronounced pu-lay), I wasn’t quite sure how well we would relate to each other.

There is a bit of a cultural divide separating us, after all.

Pulei is Masai, for starters. That’s an African tribe in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.

He speaks nine different African dialects, has climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro 21 times and has taught theology as a professor at Whitworth University.

As many of you know, I was born into the Spokanite tribe and somehow managed to avoid taking any language classes in high school.

I have made it to the top of Mount Spokane at least a dozen times although most always someone else was driving.

This is no divide. This is the cultural Grand Canyon.

Then shortly after we met, Pulei leaned forward and shared his favorite political observation as told to him by a Tanzanian friend.

“Politicians are like ripe bananas,” he said, beginning to chuckle. “Yellow and crooked.”

My brother by a different mother. I almost burst into a rendition of “It’s a Small World.”

It’s easy to see why World Vision chose this good-humored guy as a point man for the Christian humanitarian organization’s upcoming effort here to gain 2,600 new sponsorships for children.

“Count On Spokane,” it is called.

The citywide drive has just begun and runs six weeks.

(Check out www.CountOnSpokane.org or call (866) 776-5263 for details.)

Sponsoring a child is a simple proposition. For a modest monthly contribution amounting to about a buck a day, impoverished kids around the globe are given the basics for a real life: clean water, food, medical attention and education.

I’ve always been a skeptic when it comes to people who are supposedly doing the Lord’s work. But there’s no arguing with the adult who ate a spinach salad in front of me.

Pulei once was one of those World Vision kids.

He’s not one to denigrate his own culture. (Why would he? The semi-nomadic Masai are a seriously proud and a seriously badass people.) What World Vision did for him, Pulei explained, was to open up a new universe to him through learning and opportunities he never would have had.

“I don’t want to say it’s perfect,” he said of World Vision. “But it’s a great program in that what they tell you they can do, they work very hard to make it happen.”

Pulei paused.

“For me, it meant that I was able to go to school, have health care and see a life beyond the village.”

Pulei’s big adventure took him to Whitworth in the early 1990s, where he more than thrived. “I thought Spokane was the largest city in America when I came here,” he said.

He majored in religious studies and American history and got involved, he said, “in everything.” The gregarious Pulei twice was named homecoming king, was student body president and a resident assistant. He was active in the Young Life program

It was very exciting. A friend’s daughter, he added, took him to her third-grade class for show and tell.

Initially hampered by a lack of knowledge about American pop culture, Pulei said he brought himself up to speed watching episodes of the “The Brady Bunch” and other golden moldy TV sitcoms.

Now that’s serious dedication.

Pulei claims to be 42, although that’s based on some creative guesswork since birthdates aren’t a part of the Masai culture.

During one trip back to Kenya, Pulei said he was asked by some of the tribesmen what living in the United States was like.

He told them that everybody over here asks how old you are.

The tribesmen all laughed.

“Who cares?” one of them said. “You were born.”

Pulei does know, however, that he has been married to Brittany, an American he met in Kenya, for 10 years. The couple have two children, Charis and Tobiko.

Soon Pulei and family will travel back to East Africa, where he will work as a World Vision partnership specialist. One of his major goals, he said, is empowering African women.

Culture still dictates that girls get married off young for a dowry of five cows, while boys are given preferential treatment. Pulei wants to change this, but he knows change takes time.

Wherever he goes, he said, Spokane will always hold a special place in his heart.

“I still love Spokane. I’ve seen it change so much,” he said, adding with a laugh, “At last I can go to the NorthTown Mall and get a good haircut now.”