Today is the 13th anniversary of non-apartheid in South Africa. So happy birthday South Africa!
Thursday we had our one reliable class, Anthro of Infectious Diseases. It was interesting and we learned about a lot of interesting Kenyan cultures that have practices that lead to the spread of certain diseases. The Turkana people, a tribe from northern Kenya, have nurse dogs who are trained to lick the butts of babies after they go to the bathroom. These dogs’ feces are also used to treat wounds as well as for cosmetic purposes. We also talked about FGM and surprisingly most people said it was detrimental to women’s health, even most of the men in the class. One guy though was arguing that it was helpful because it cut down on pre-marital sex and therefore on the risk of contracting diseases through sex. Another guy added onto this by saying yes it was good because it was like a “seal” on the woman. Whoa.
After class we hung around and talked for a while with a couple guys from our classes who we’ve made friends with. I was talking to two of them, Cleofas and Philip, and they asked what Americans think of Kenya. I told them that there are a lot of travel warnings and Americans think it is really dangerous over here, but once we got here we realized it wasn’t as bad as the warnings make it seem. Then I laughed and told him, “I think the most dangerous thing are those crazy matatu drivers.” They laughed and we got into a discussion about Kenya and how it isn’t as “organized” as some countries, but they were saying that this lack of organization is what makes it fun and exciting. Philip said “it keeps you on your toes” and Cleofas said “with all that organization you get to feeling lonely.” They were interesting points and it is true that I am always on my toes. Some days this is fun, other days I am tired of it and want the organization I am used to at home. Anyway, they are nice guys and it was a good conversation.
Whitney and I went to Java House for lunch and then I went to an Internet café and got to talk to Joy and Grace on Skype! It was really good to talk to both of them and see them at the same time : ) Afterwards I caught a matatu home and called KENWA (Kenya Network for Women with AIDS) and I am going to go to their office on Monday and hopefully start volunteering so I am excited about that.
Another interesting thing that happened to me today was that when I was walking to the matatu a man looked at me as I walked by and said “Hola Senorita” and I did a mental double take. As sick as I am of being called out to by men, I have to give him creativity points.
Okay one last funny thing. We sat down to eat dinner and a couple bites in, the power went out. Monica went into the kitchen and came out with this tiny little candle and put it on the table and said “candle light deeener” in kind of a sing-songy voice. It was SO cute. She cracks me up sometimes.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
rain rain go away
I keep trying to make friends with this city called Nairobi, but it just isn’t working out. Although I try to see the good in it, I can’t seem to stop hating it. And I know that hate is a strong word, and I try to be careful about using it, but I think it is appropriate for my current feelings. And if there is anything worse than trying to walk through the streets of Nairobi on a week day, it is trying to walk through these streets in the rain.
On Wednesday our class was cancelled and Wairimu wanted to meet us for lunch. She wanted to meet at a place about a mile from where I get off the matatu and it had already been pouring all night and hadn’t let up by 11am. So my wonderful host mother Monica called me a cab that was going to drive me, and I was very grateful. When I got in the cab though, I realized that he did not have windshield wipers that were functioning, so it was pretty terrifying being in the passenger’s seat of a car that you could not see through the windshield of and knowing that brakes were not working well since the roads were so wet. So I told the driver I needed to get dropped off at the post office, which is about where the matatu would have dropped me off anyway, and I was glad to get out of that car and walk the mile despite the rain.
So we had lunch with Wairimu, which was nice, and then she dropped me off about a mile from the matatu (although she did lend me her umbrella which made the walk a lot better). Anyway, the problem with Nairobi is that there are thousands of people on every street and none of them are watching where they are going. And when you put umbrellas in these people’s hands, it makes it that much worse unless you are wearing safety glasses to protect your eyes from being poked out by the umbrellas. Then there are the cars that, when you try to cross the street between them, will pull up a few inches and then stop so you cannot pass. Here I am soaking wet in the pouring rain and these people sitting in cars need to pull up a few inches just to stop! Aahh! Also, the matatus charge extra when it is raining because they know people are desperate for a dry ride. So I get on a matatu, squeeze into the very last seat with two men on either side of me while “I’m slippin’, I’m fallin’, I can’t get up” is blasting out my eardrums on the giant speakers they have installed.
Anyway, that is my venting session of a blog about my constant dispute with the largest city in East Africa. I don’t know if we will ever make amends. I am liking my home in Kariokor more and more though and realizing that I would rather be here than the YWCA or in Karen, for various reasons. I like my little family and my room and the markets outside of the flats. So those things compensate for my hatred of the central city : )
On Wednesday our class was cancelled and Wairimu wanted to meet us for lunch. She wanted to meet at a place about a mile from where I get off the matatu and it had already been pouring all night and hadn’t let up by 11am. So my wonderful host mother Monica called me a cab that was going to drive me, and I was very grateful. When I got in the cab though, I realized that he did not have windshield wipers that were functioning, so it was pretty terrifying being in the passenger’s seat of a car that you could not see through the windshield of and knowing that brakes were not working well since the roads were so wet. So I told the driver I needed to get dropped off at the post office, which is about where the matatu would have dropped me off anyway, and I was glad to get out of that car and walk the mile despite the rain.
So we had lunch with Wairimu, which was nice, and then she dropped me off about a mile from the matatu (although she did lend me her umbrella which made the walk a lot better). Anyway, the problem with Nairobi is that there are thousands of people on every street and none of them are watching where they are going. And when you put umbrellas in these people’s hands, it makes it that much worse unless you are wearing safety glasses to protect your eyes from being poked out by the umbrellas. Then there are the cars that, when you try to cross the street between them, will pull up a few inches and then stop so you cannot pass. Here I am soaking wet in the pouring rain and these people sitting in cars need to pull up a few inches just to stop! Aahh! Also, the matatus charge extra when it is raining because they know people are desperate for a dry ride. So I get on a matatu, squeeze into the very last seat with two men on either side of me while “I’m slippin’, I’m fallin’, I can’t get up” is blasting out my eardrums on the giant speakers they have installed.
Anyway, that is my venting session of a blog about my constant dispute with the largest city in East Africa. I don’t know if we will ever make amends. I am liking my home in Kariokor more and more though and realizing that I would rather be here than the YWCA or in Karen, for various reasons. I like my little family and my room and the markets outside of the flats. So those things compensate for my hatred of the central city : )
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
another poem
this one is for joy and her comment about a corgi safari and also for yarimee because when I think of JP I think of her : )
The Corgis of Queen Elizabeth
Diane Wald
on wednesday september 10th 2003 i was visiting my friend
larry
who is chronically ill
larry knows everything about the corgis
and queen elizabeth
who now has five or six corgis
who mill about her feet and the feet of her dressmakers
and all the kings and queens before elizabeth
and he knows what the corgis have for breakfast
and he knows that they get fresh vegetables not raw
and they get turkey
in little silver bowls
cut up in little cubes not slices
and queen elizabeth serves them their meals herself
she had a favorite corgi named daisy
whom she buried somewhere on the palace grounds
with a little corgi funeral
and i do not mean to make fun of that
because i am happy she loved her corgi
but let’s be clear it does not always mean
that a person who loves a different kind of creature
is totally good
as i understand hitler loved canaries
and not to compare her to hitler
but queen elizabeth also indulges in hunting
and we all know about those presidential dogs
while larry is talking i’m thinking this is very fascinating
but i’m also watching the digital clock
over his shoulder
which displays hours minutes weather wind velocity
and alerts you whenever the airport closes in boston
if there are disasters of any kind
this is a very special clock
that he bought with part of the money that he received
from his suit against the massachusetts bay transit authority
occasioned by a trolley driver closing the door of the trolley
on his already painful foot
as part of his affliction is a dreadful neuropathy
to which he rarely refers
although that trolley incident really pissed him off
because the driver could have easily seen his crutches
he tells me the corgis have their own bedroom
next to the bedroom of queen elizabeth and prince philip
yes the queen does sleep with the prince even now
except on the nights he’s out very late
and comes home after she has retired
when politely he goes and sleeps on a special princely bed
right in his dressing room
the corgis however always sleep in their own room
just next to the queen’s own queenly bedroom
and recently when a man
was somehow able to break into the palace
and walk boldly into the queen’s suite of rooms
finding the queen cloaked and crowned in terrycloth
and she had just taken her queenly evening bath
and was carrying her gin tray and big yellow towel
the queen was most relieved that the corgis were not able
to get out of their bedroom
because she feared that they would have used
their little diamond-sharp teeth
to shred the silly man like turkey
so loyal and so fierce (but so sweet) are those corgis
and while larry is telling me about the queen and the corgis
and throwing in a lot of extra information about prince charles
and camilla and how camilla and her father
actually have suites of rooms in one of the royal buildings
where diana’s sons now live
i cannot understand how this can be true
but larry swears it is
in any case all this amazing information pours out of larry
in a way that I never would have believed possible
since he is normally a rather circumspect fellow
and while i’m watching the airport clock
over his right shoulder
i’m watching over his left shoulder
his tiny television
which for some unknown reason he has set to show captions
for the hard of hearing
they are showing newly released tapes from al qaeda
showing pictures of osama bin laden
or someone made up to look like osama bin laden
walking up and down the hillsides
somewhere
looking a lot like a shepherd
from the old testament
and underneath the captions are reading
“is it osama?
is it not osama?”
there is an investigation to try to find out
whether the tape is real or a hoax
and whether the soundtrack (or what shows on larry’s tv
as italicized captions) was added to the tape after the video
was shot and i’m thinking
what difference does it make
it doesn’t mean that it isn’t really osama
or even that it isn’t really
a shepherd from the old testament
and perhaps it’s all happening in cleveland or barcelona or
honolulu
and not in afghanistan or iraq or hollywood
or any of the places we’re always being conditioned to think
are the only places anything of significance ever happens
when really everything is happening right here
right here with the corgis and queen elizabeth and larry
and the trolley driver and the lawyer who handled larry’s case
and the democratic presidential candidates
and the people who are sitting out on their stoops
just the way people did fifty years ago
on washington street in jamaica plain
but it’s right here and not twenty years ago or five years from
now and
everything’s happening right here
right here where you hear or read this and make up your mind
about it
right here and right now and not anywhere else forever
The Corgis of Queen Elizabeth
Diane Wald
on wednesday september 10th 2003 i was visiting my friend
larry
who is chronically ill
larry knows everything about the corgis
and queen elizabeth
who now has five or six corgis
who mill about her feet and the feet of her dressmakers
and all the kings and queens before elizabeth
and he knows what the corgis have for breakfast
and he knows that they get fresh vegetables not raw
and they get turkey
in little silver bowls
cut up in little cubes not slices
and queen elizabeth serves them their meals herself
she had a favorite corgi named daisy
whom she buried somewhere on the palace grounds
with a little corgi funeral
and i do not mean to make fun of that
because i am happy she loved her corgi
but let’s be clear it does not always mean
that a person who loves a different kind of creature
is totally good
as i understand hitler loved canaries
and not to compare her to hitler
but queen elizabeth also indulges in hunting
and we all know about those presidential dogs
while larry is talking i’m thinking this is very fascinating
but i’m also watching the digital clock
over his shoulder
which displays hours minutes weather wind velocity
and alerts you whenever the airport closes in boston
if there are disasters of any kind
this is a very special clock
that he bought with part of the money that he received
from his suit against the massachusetts bay transit authority
occasioned by a trolley driver closing the door of the trolley
on his already painful foot
as part of his affliction is a dreadful neuropathy
to which he rarely refers
although that trolley incident really pissed him off
because the driver could have easily seen his crutches
he tells me the corgis have their own bedroom
next to the bedroom of queen elizabeth and prince philip
yes the queen does sleep with the prince even now
except on the nights he’s out very late
and comes home after she has retired
when politely he goes and sleeps on a special princely bed
right in his dressing room
the corgis however always sleep in their own room
just next to the queen’s own queenly bedroom
and recently when a man
was somehow able to break into the palace
and walk boldly into the queen’s suite of rooms
finding the queen cloaked and crowned in terrycloth
and she had just taken her queenly evening bath
and was carrying her gin tray and big yellow towel
the queen was most relieved that the corgis were not able
to get out of their bedroom
because she feared that they would have used
their little diamond-sharp teeth
to shred the silly man like turkey
so loyal and so fierce (but so sweet) are those corgis
and while larry is telling me about the queen and the corgis
and throwing in a lot of extra information about prince charles
and camilla and how camilla and her father
actually have suites of rooms in one of the royal buildings
where diana’s sons now live
i cannot understand how this can be true
but larry swears it is
in any case all this amazing information pours out of larry
in a way that I never would have believed possible
since he is normally a rather circumspect fellow
and while i’m watching the airport clock
over his right shoulder
i’m watching over his left shoulder
his tiny television
which for some unknown reason he has set to show captions
for the hard of hearing
they are showing newly released tapes from al qaeda
showing pictures of osama bin laden
or someone made up to look like osama bin laden
walking up and down the hillsides
somewhere
looking a lot like a shepherd
from the old testament
and underneath the captions are reading
“is it osama?
is it not osama?”
there is an investigation to try to find out
whether the tape is real or a hoax
and whether the soundtrack (or what shows on larry’s tv
as italicized captions) was added to the tape after the video
was shot and i’m thinking
what difference does it make
it doesn’t mean that it isn’t really osama
or even that it isn’t really
a shepherd from the old testament
and perhaps it’s all happening in cleveland or barcelona or
honolulu
and not in afghanistan or iraq or hollywood
or any of the places we’re always being conditioned to think
are the only places anything of significance ever happens
when really everything is happening right here
right here with the corgis and queen elizabeth and larry
and the trolley driver and the lawyer who handled larry’s case
and the democratic presidential candidates
and the people who are sitting out on their stoops
just the way people did fifty years ago
on washington street in jamaica plain
but it’s right here and not twenty years ago or five years from
now and
everything’s happening right here
right here where you hear or read this and make up your mind
about it
right here and right now and not anywhere else forever
Monday, April 23, 2007
a poem
I've been reading some poetry lately and this one gives me goosebumps every time I read it : )
Bedecked
By Victoria Redel
Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy
store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.
He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star
choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says
sticker earrings look too fake.
Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a
boy’s only a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping
off tracks into the tub.
Then tell me it’s fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy
who’s got some girl to him,
and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in
the park.
Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son
who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—
this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and
prisms spin up everywhere
and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows—made every
shining true color.
Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once
that brave.
Bedecked
By Victoria Redel
Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy
store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.
He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star
choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says
sticker earrings look too fake.
Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a
boy’s only a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping
off tracks into the tub.
Then tell me it’s fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy
who’s got some girl to him,
and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in
the park.
Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son
who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—
this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and
prisms spin up everywhere
and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows—made every
shining true color.
Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once
that brave.
luxury living
So Whitney and I discovered a certain hotel in the city that has wireless and an extremely beautiful pool with yellow cushioned lawnchairs along the sides of it with umbrellas and men in ties who bring people colorful drinks. We both have a paper due on Tuesday (our first actual assignment of the semester for any of our classes), so I suggested we spend the day here, researching and writing our papers, as well as swimming and laying in the sun and observing the ridiculous-ness of the rich guests who stay here. I wonder if any of these other people are just posing as guests like we are. I don't think so.
The weekend was slow and good. I spent a lot of time with Chipa watching movies. We actually had sort of a movie marathon. We watched Gulliver's Travels, Pretty Woman, Oliver Twist, Sister Act, and The Count of Monty Christo. I am a little movied out...but they were all enjoyable. I feel like Chipa and I are becoming better friends. We are laughing a lot and I like his laugh so that makes it all the better.
The papers we are writing are on whey men use covert prestige in language more than women, which means swearing, not using proper grammar, etc. It is somewhat interesting, but I haven't done school work in about 4 months, so I am having a little trouble focusing (which is evident from this post).
So the plan for the rest of the day is to continue to sit by this pool until about 5:30, then head home. This might be my most boring post ever.
The weekend was slow and good. I spent a lot of time with Chipa watching movies. We actually had sort of a movie marathon. We watched Gulliver's Travels, Pretty Woman, Oliver Twist, Sister Act, and The Count of Monty Christo. I am a little movied out...but they were all enjoyable. I feel like Chipa and I are becoming better friends. We are laughing a lot and I like his laugh so that makes it all the better.
The papers we are writing are on whey men use covert prestige in language more than women, which means swearing, not using proper grammar, etc. It is somewhat interesting, but I haven't done school work in about 4 months, so I am having a little trouble focusing (which is evident from this post).
So the plan for the rest of the day is to continue to sit by this pool until about 5:30, then head home. This might be my most boring post ever.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Samburu (longest post ever)
Day 1:
We left Friday morning at about 9:30am, piling us and our stuff into a Toyota van (exactly like the one my dad had when I was growing up) with all of our stuff and our driver, Francis. Within the first 10 minutes, we saw a matatu that had been completely crushed by an overturned log truck and that was scary but I took it as a good sign that that was the disaster of the day and nothing bad would happen to us on that Friday the 13th : ) Once we got out of Nairobi, the scenery was beautiful with a lot of mountains and a lot of goats and cows. We also saw zebras, baboons, impala, and springbucks along the way. We stopped at Thompson falls, a waterfall, where I held a chameleon, which was very strange. After a long and very bumpy 8 hours, we made it to the Yare Camel Club, set up our tents, had dinner, and headed to bed, but not before seeing two spiders and a grasshopper that were the size of fat mice.
Day2:
I was up at 6:30 with the sun and with a lot of birds I had never heard before as well as a baboon doing his grunting thing. One sounded like it was saying “mom” in a very loud and irritated voice. I later learned they call that bird “goawaybird”. I watched the sun finish rising over the mountains, which was really beautiful and reminded me of the mornings in Honduras. I already knew that I was going to fall in love with this place and that this is the kind of place I wanted to be when I came to Kenya. We had breakfast and went out to meet our camels. My camel’s name was “Nivoni” which means “dark camel” because mine was a lot more brown than the other yellowish ones. Camels, I learned in these 5 days, and really disgusting creatures. Their favorite thing to eat is cactus so they have tons of thorns sticking out of their faces. They have huge dirty teeth and foamy mouths and make this horrible gurgling/roaring sound when they are pissed off. Ugh. So we got on the camels, the camels stood up, and we began our walk.
Our guides were “Ernest” and “Doctor”. Ernest is a Samburu warrior (which is a stage in a Samburu man’s life starting with circumcision and having killed a lion) and Doctor is the local Doctor for the Samburu people. The Samburu are the cousin tribe to the Masaai and share a common language with them. Ernest taught us Samburu words and in exchange we taught him Spanish : ) At one point he was saying “como estas” and up ahead Doc was answering “bien” and they went back and forth for a while, which was funny to hear, especially considering where we were. Both of our guides were amazing and warm and by the end, good friends. Ernest taught us to say “Sopa!” the Samburu greeting to which the response is “Oye!”. I told him in Spanish that would mean “Soup!” “Listen!”. : ) He also taught us to say “mata” which means “I don’t have any” and is what we said when little kids yelled “mzungu! Give me sweet!” or “mzungu! Give me balloon!”.
We went to a village where there was a blacksmith who pounded up some old pieces of metal he had found on the ground and melted them in the fire. He then poured the liquid metal into the dirt and when it solidified, began to shape it into bracelets. He gave us bracelets with our names on them later that day. While he was doing that, we went inside his tiny hut where his wife and many children were. They were really cute and interested in the cameras. By the time we got home that afternoon, none of us could sit anymore because our butts were so bruised from being bounced up and down on a camel hump all day and I was also sun burnt in places I had never been, such as the space between my nose and upper lip, and my scalp and earlobes.
Before dinner We played basketball with Doc and another boy, who both tried to master dribbling the ball, but with two hands, and it was cute and funny to watch. We also played pool that night in the bar with Ernest and Doc and some other Samburu men. It was a really good time and a nice atmosphere. Both while playing basketball and pool, and other things during the week, it felt so normal and then I would look around and realize I was in a room full of men wearing colorful wraps around their waists (called kangas) and tons of beads and realized that these men in the U.S. would never be considered tough for wearing “skirts” or jewelry, and here they are warriors! I thought that was really cool. We went to bed around 9:30 and slept well despite some pouring rain. I was thinking it was funny that after a long day of being tired and sore from our adventures, we come back and take cold showers and sleep on the ground.
Day 3:
We went 25 km on the camels on Sunday and I walked a good part of it because my butt couldn’t handle being on a camel all day again. We walked through a lot of forest and tracked elephants by following their poop, but never actually saw any. We walked through a town where a bunch of kids came running and followed us for a while. One of them said “number one” so I said “number two” and we counted back and forth like this until we got to about 30 when they kind of faded off. I was impressed they could count that high in English and it constantly amazes me how so many of the kids in Kenya know 3 languages by default, English and kiSwahili (the national languages) as well as a tribal language. We also saw a sheep that had just been born and its umbilical cord was still hanging from its stomach. Ernest and I sang the “Jambo Bwana” song a lot, sometimes substituting words like “Hakuna matatu” instead of “Hakuna matata” which is sort of funny because it means no matatu instead of no problem. He also taught us a camel song in Samburu that goes “Lorry Dora, Dong Dong Leg Leg Leg” and is supposed to be about how strong camels are and how they sound when they walk.
Doc gave us some “miraa” to chew, which is a plant they chew here to say awake. I just had one piece and wasn’t a big fan. A lot of the men in Kenya chew it though and I am not sure whether it is legal or not as I have heard various things about it.
When we got back to camp, we met Petri, who is a blacksmith and musician and artist. We went into his little hut and he played us some music on his six stringed instrument and sang songs in Samburu, adding in our names sometimes. Then we played a version of mancala, which he calls “the ball game” and on my first try I beat him! He was shocked : )
Before I left for Samburu, I started reading this book called “The White Masai” which I saw in a bookstore and thought looked interesting. It is about a Swiss woman who falls in love with a Samburu warrior and lives with him in the bush for a long time. Little did I know, that it is set exactly where we were and being there was like complete illustration for my book. Everything she talks about, I saw or did. Then, I showed Ernest the book because there are pictures in it from her experiences and he knows her husband Lketinga! At first I asked him if he knew him and he said know, he was from an older generation of warriors, but then he asked his name and when I told him, he said “Lketinga!” in excitement and then went on to tell me about his last name and where he lives and about his wife, which all coincided with the stuff in the book. It was so crazy and so cool and such a wonderful coincidence. I couldn’t believe it!
Sunday night it poured again and I woke up to find the entire bottom half of my sleeping bag soaked from the rain coming into the tent, so I didn’t sleep very well that night.
Day 4:
At one point on Monday there were a little group of kids trailing behind us, being shy and giggly. I had my pant legs rolled up and at one point one of the kids got up the courage to come walk next to my camel. He looked up at me and kind of smiled and then all of the sudden, put his little hand on my ankle and then ran back to his friends giggling. It reminded me of “Finding Nemo” where the little kid fish dare each other to go and touch the boat. It made me smile.
Doc brought us to a big aloe plant where we put some aloe on our sunburns. The aloe though was yellow and left our skin looking like we had been covered in iodine. At lunch time a few kids came over with a lamb that had just been born and they let me hold it! It was so cute and soft, but its umbilical cord juice got on my shirt, which kind of grossed me out.
When we got back to camp I played soccer with a bunch of boys and it was really fun. I was in sneakers and shorts and a tank top while they were barefoot with their woolen blankets wrapped around them and I wondered how they weren’t dying of heat exhaustion, as I was sweating barely wearing anything. It made me thing about how the last time I played soccer with a bunch of barefoot boys was on the equator too, but on the other side of the world!
After dinner this guy in the bar invited us to come over and sit with a group of his friends. He wanted to have a conversation about Samburu and America and we talked about similarities and differences and strengths and weaknesses of each place. It was cool and nice to have a genuine conversation with people and to learn from each other. It was such a change of pace from Nairobi where there is the constant hustle and everyone keeps to themselves except to yell out something not very friendly.
Monday night it poured from about 7pm to 7am and there was a river running through our tent. We had been sleeping on foam mattresses under our sleeping bags, which were like sponges and were completely filled with water. Everything was wet and it was pretty miserable. In the morning we could hear a river roaring at the bottom of the campsite that hadn’t been there the day before.
Day 5:
It was raining when we woke up and continued to rain for the first couple hours of our hike so we decided to go back to the camp site and just hang out for the day. We played cards with Ernest and talked to him a lot about what it’s like to be a warrior. Playing cards was interesting, because warriors don’t go to school, so although he is extremely smart, he can’t read or write, so we had to think of a game that he could play where the numbers on the cards wouldn’t matter and he would only have to recognize the symbols. We played the game spoons where you have to pass cards in a circle and try to get 4 of a kind. It was tricky at first, but he got the hang of it. He kept having more than 4 cards in his hand though and we kept telling him he had to get rid of some cards. He said with a little smile, “That’s why I keep more cards. I want to win!” Haha.
After that we went over to Petri’s hut to see some new beaded jewelry he had just come back from town with, where the women make them. I bought a few things, but didn’t have very much money with me. I was wearing a pair of cargo shorts and Petri pointed to them and said he liked them and would trade me things for them. So I thought, why not, and ended up trading the shorts I had been wearing for a bunch of jewelry and a wooden Turkana bride doll I had been admiring. He immediately put the shorts on and wore them for the rest of the time we were there : )
After that we had an arrow shooting contest with real metal tipped arrows and a box nailed to a tree as the target. It was hard, but on my last turn I hit the box and got 10 points! At dinner one of the women who worked in the office came up to us and said she felt really bad that we had been in the rain for 4 nights and asked if we would want to stay in one of the little cabins for free. We could see no reason why we wouldn’t want to do that and moved our stuff into this little room with three beds AND an attached bathroom with a toilet and shower and sink. I have never in my life been so ecstatic to see a bed or a bathroom inside. Before bed we played Kenyan poker with a bunch of guys and it was an elimination game where each round the person with the most points left in their hand got eliminated. It came down to Whitney and I in the end and I won! Wahoo! We slept very well that night in our warm dry beds.
Day 6:
It was as if all of Samburu knew it was our last day riding the camels. Every single group of kids we passed yelled “Buh bye!” to us over and over, which they hadn’t done on any of the previous days. The first group we passed yelled “buh bye” back and forth with me until we were too far apart to hear each other. It was really adorable, especially to see them waving frantically, some of them with both hands reaching as far as they could above their heads. Also, a lot of the kids ran out singing the camel song as fast as they could. Apparently it is a competition among kids to see who can sing it the fastest. It cracked me up, especially hearing it in their little high pitched voices.
We saw monkeys on our walk that day and a lot of zebras. When we got back we had another arrow shooting contest with a lot more people this time. It was pretty fun. Then we watched the sun set and went and had dinner. We sat with Ernest and Doc and Doc handed us these little beaded rings he had gotten for us. It was such an amazing gift, especially because the Masai and Samburu people make almost all of their money on selling beaded things and other things they make, especially to tourists, and in my experience will never give something away for free. So it made me feel like we had truly made friends with these guys and made me really sad to think about leaving.
We played another round of Kenyan poker that night before going to bed. The sky was finally clear and there were hundreds of stars. It was really beautiful.
Day 7:
I got up at 5:45 to watch the sunrise over the mountains. At first there were a lot of clouds and it wasn’t very pretty, but then the clouds started to clear and these big rays of pinkish orange shot up over the mountains like huge spotlights. It was amazing. Then I went back to the cabin and sat outside for a while, thinking about how much I didn’t want to leave and go back to the big stinky city. We packed up, ate breakfast, and started to say our goodbyes. We went down to Petri’s hut and said goodbye to him and as we walked back up the hill, he called out goodbye again and his voice kind of cracked and he just stood there waving for a really long time. We said goodbye to Ernest, which was really hard because he had been such an amazing guide and teacher and friend. Everyone kept asking when we were coming back, and it was hard to say that we probably weren’t. As we drove away and I looked back at the people waving and started to cry, and couldn’t stop for the next 20 or 30 minutes of the drive. Every time I looked up at the landscape or the little kids on the side of the road waving, I was reminded of the warmth of the people in Samburu or how much Ernest had shared with us or Doc’s smile. I couldn’t believe how much I had fallen in love with this place in less than a week of being there, and how much it was breaking my heart to leave.
I cheered up a little though, when we saw a lot of giraffes and a few ostriches on our way out. We hadn’t seen much wildlife besides the zebras and gazelles and impala because the rainy season was just barely starting when we were there. I guess those 4 nights of downpour helped though, and the giraffes were along the sides of the road eating leaves and stopping to stare at us. It took us about 8 hours to drive home and then we were back in crazy Nairobi where I had to squeeze onto a matatu with my hiking backpack, a sleeping bag, and a 5 liter container of water and the man made me pay for two seats. I hope some day I will make it back to Samburu.
We left Friday morning at about 9:30am, piling us and our stuff into a Toyota van (exactly like the one my dad had when I was growing up) with all of our stuff and our driver, Francis. Within the first 10 minutes, we saw a matatu that had been completely crushed by an overturned log truck and that was scary but I took it as a good sign that that was the disaster of the day and nothing bad would happen to us on that Friday the 13th : ) Once we got out of Nairobi, the scenery was beautiful with a lot of mountains and a lot of goats and cows. We also saw zebras, baboons, impala, and springbucks along the way. We stopped at Thompson falls, a waterfall, where I held a chameleon, which was very strange. After a long and very bumpy 8 hours, we made it to the Yare Camel Club, set up our tents, had dinner, and headed to bed, but not before seeing two spiders and a grasshopper that were the size of fat mice.
Day2:
I was up at 6:30 with the sun and with a lot of birds I had never heard before as well as a baboon doing his grunting thing. One sounded like it was saying “mom” in a very loud and irritated voice. I later learned they call that bird “goawaybird”. I watched the sun finish rising over the mountains, which was really beautiful and reminded me of the mornings in Honduras. I already knew that I was going to fall in love with this place and that this is the kind of place I wanted to be when I came to Kenya. We had breakfast and went out to meet our camels. My camel’s name was “Nivoni” which means “dark camel” because mine was a lot more brown than the other yellowish ones. Camels, I learned in these 5 days, and really disgusting creatures. Their favorite thing to eat is cactus so they have tons of thorns sticking out of their faces. They have huge dirty teeth and foamy mouths and make this horrible gurgling/roaring sound when they are pissed off. Ugh. So we got on the camels, the camels stood up, and we began our walk.
Our guides were “Ernest” and “Doctor”. Ernest is a Samburu warrior (which is a stage in a Samburu man’s life starting with circumcision and having killed a lion) and Doctor is the local Doctor for the Samburu people. The Samburu are the cousin tribe to the Masaai and share a common language with them. Ernest taught us Samburu words and in exchange we taught him Spanish : ) At one point he was saying “como estas” and up ahead Doc was answering “bien” and they went back and forth for a while, which was funny to hear, especially considering where we were. Both of our guides were amazing and warm and by the end, good friends. Ernest taught us to say “Sopa!” the Samburu greeting to which the response is “Oye!”. I told him in Spanish that would mean “Soup!” “Listen!”. : ) He also taught us to say “mata” which means “I don’t have any” and is what we said when little kids yelled “mzungu! Give me sweet!” or “mzungu! Give me balloon!”.
We went to a village where there was a blacksmith who pounded up some old pieces of metal he had found on the ground and melted them in the fire. He then poured the liquid metal into the dirt and when it solidified, began to shape it into bracelets. He gave us bracelets with our names on them later that day. While he was doing that, we went inside his tiny hut where his wife and many children were. They were really cute and interested in the cameras. By the time we got home that afternoon, none of us could sit anymore because our butts were so bruised from being bounced up and down on a camel hump all day and I was also sun burnt in places I had never been, such as the space between my nose and upper lip, and my scalp and earlobes.
Before dinner We played basketball with Doc and another boy, who both tried to master dribbling the ball, but with two hands, and it was cute and funny to watch. We also played pool that night in the bar with Ernest and Doc and some other Samburu men. It was a really good time and a nice atmosphere. Both while playing basketball and pool, and other things during the week, it felt so normal and then I would look around and realize I was in a room full of men wearing colorful wraps around their waists (called kangas) and tons of beads and realized that these men in the U.S. would never be considered tough for wearing “skirts” or jewelry, and here they are warriors! I thought that was really cool. We went to bed around 9:30 and slept well despite some pouring rain. I was thinking it was funny that after a long day of being tired and sore from our adventures, we come back and take cold showers and sleep on the ground.
Day 3:
We went 25 km on the camels on Sunday and I walked a good part of it because my butt couldn’t handle being on a camel all day again. We walked through a lot of forest and tracked elephants by following their poop, but never actually saw any. We walked through a town where a bunch of kids came running and followed us for a while. One of them said “number one” so I said “number two” and we counted back and forth like this until we got to about 30 when they kind of faded off. I was impressed they could count that high in English and it constantly amazes me how so many of the kids in Kenya know 3 languages by default, English and kiSwahili (the national languages) as well as a tribal language. We also saw a sheep that had just been born and its umbilical cord was still hanging from its stomach. Ernest and I sang the “Jambo Bwana” song a lot, sometimes substituting words like “Hakuna matatu” instead of “Hakuna matata” which is sort of funny because it means no matatu instead of no problem. He also taught us a camel song in Samburu that goes “Lorry Dora, Dong Dong Leg Leg Leg” and is supposed to be about how strong camels are and how they sound when they walk.
Doc gave us some “miraa” to chew, which is a plant they chew here to say awake. I just had one piece and wasn’t a big fan. A lot of the men in Kenya chew it though and I am not sure whether it is legal or not as I have heard various things about it.
When we got back to camp, we met Petri, who is a blacksmith and musician and artist. We went into his little hut and he played us some music on his six stringed instrument and sang songs in Samburu, adding in our names sometimes. Then we played a version of mancala, which he calls “the ball game” and on my first try I beat him! He was shocked : )
Before I left for Samburu, I started reading this book called “The White Masai” which I saw in a bookstore and thought looked interesting. It is about a Swiss woman who falls in love with a Samburu warrior and lives with him in the bush for a long time. Little did I know, that it is set exactly where we were and being there was like complete illustration for my book. Everything she talks about, I saw or did. Then, I showed Ernest the book because there are pictures in it from her experiences and he knows her husband Lketinga! At first I asked him if he knew him and he said know, he was from an older generation of warriors, but then he asked his name and when I told him, he said “Lketinga!” in excitement and then went on to tell me about his last name and where he lives and about his wife, which all coincided with the stuff in the book. It was so crazy and so cool and such a wonderful coincidence. I couldn’t believe it!
Sunday night it poured again and I woke up to find the entire bottom half of my sleeping bag soaked from the rain coming into the tent, so I didn’t sleep very well that night.
Day 4:
At one point on Monday there were a little group of kids trailing behind us, being shy and giggly. I had my pant legs rolled up and at one point one of the kids got up the courage to come walk next to my camel. He looked up at me and kind of smiled and then all of the sudden, put his little hand on my ankle and then ran back to his friends giggling. It reminded me of “Finding Nemo” where the little kid fish dare each other to go and touch the boat. It made me smile.
Doc brought us to a big aloe plant where we put some aloe on our sunburns. The aloe though was yellow and left our skin looking like we had been covered in iodine. At lunch time a few kids came over with a lamb that had just been born and they let me hold it! It was so cute and soft, but its umbilical cord juice got on my shirt, which kind of grossed me out.
When we got back to camp I played soccer with a bunch of boys and it was really fun. I was in sneakers and shorts and a tank top while they were barefoot with their woolen blankets wrapped around them and I wondered how they weren’t dying of heat exhaustion, as I was sweating barely wearing anything. It made me thing about how the last time I played soccer with a bunch of barefoot boys was on the equator too, but on the other side of the world!
After dinner this guy in the bar invited us to come over and sit with a group of his friends. He wanted to have a conversation about Samburu and America and we talked about similarities and differences and strengths and weaknesses of each place. It was cool and nice to have a genuine conversation with people and to learn from each other. It was such a change of pace from Nairobi where there is the constant hustle and everyone keeps to themselves except to yell out something not very friendly.
Monday night it poured from about 7pm to 7am and there was a river running through our tent. We had been sleeping on foam mattresses under our sleeping bags, which were like sponges and were completely filled with water. Everything was wet and it was pretty miserable. In the morning we could hear a river roaring at the bottom of the campsite that hadn’t been there the day before.
Day 5:
It was raining when we woke up and continued to rain for the first couple hours of our hike so we decided to go back to the camp site and just hang out for the day. We played cards with Ernest and talked to him a lot about what it’s like to be a warrior. Playing cards was interesting, because warriors don’t go to school, so although he is extremely smart, he can’t read or write, so we had to think of a game that he could play where the numbers on the cards wouldn’t matter and he would only have to recognize the symbols. We played the game spoons where you have to pass cards in a circle and try to get 4 of a kind. It was tricky at first, but he got the hang of it. He kept having more than 4 cards in his hand though and we kept telling him he had to get rid of some cards. He said with a little smile, “That’s why I keep more cards. I want to win!” Haha.
After that we went over to Petri’s hut to see some new beaded jewelry he had just come back from town with, where the women make them. I bought a few things, but didn’t have very much money with me. I was wearing a pair of cargo shorts and Petri pointed to them and said he liked them and would trade me things for them. So I thought, why not, and ended up trading the shorts I had been wearing for a bunch of jewelry and a wooden Turkana bride doll I had been admiring. He immediately put the shorts on and wore them for the rest of the time we were there : )
After that we had an arrow shooting contest with real metal tipped arrows and a box nailed to a tree as the target. It was hard, but on my last turn I hit the box and got 10 points! At dinner one of the women who worked in the office came up to us and said she felt really bad that we had been in the rain for 4 nights and asked if we would want to stay in one of the little cabins for free. We could see no reason why we wouldn’t want to do that and moved our stuff into this little room with three beds AND an attached bathroom with a toilet and shower and sink. I have never in my life been so ecstatic to see a bed or a bathroom inside. Before bed we played Kenyan poker with a bunch of guys and it was an elimination game where each round the person with the most points left in their hand got eliminated. It came down to Whitney and I in the end and I won! Wahoo! We slept very well that night in our warm dry beds.
Day 6:
It was as if all of Samburu knew it was our last day riding the camels. Every single group of kids we passed yelled “Buh bye!” to us over and over, which they hadn’t done on any of the previous days. The first group we passed yelled “buh bye” back and forth with me until we were too far apart to hear each other. It was really adorable, especially to see them waving frantically, some of them with both hands reaching as far as they could above their heads. Also, a lot of the kids ran out singing the camel song as fast as they could. Apparently it is a competition among kids to see who can sing it the fastest. It cracked me up, especially hearing it in their little high pitched voices.
We saw monkeys on our walk that day and a lot of zebras. When we got back we had another arrow shooting contest with a lot more people this time. It was pretty fun. Then we watched the sun set and went and had dinner. We sat with Ernest and Doc and Doc handed us these little beaded rings he had gotten for us. It was such an amazing gift, especially because the Masai and Samburu people make almost all of their money on selling beaded things and other things they make, especially to tourists, and in my experience will never give something away for free. So it made me feel like we had truly made friends with these guys and made me really sad to think about leaving.
We played another round of Kenyan poker that night before going to bed. The sky was finally clear and there were hundreds of stars. It was really beautiful.
Day 7:
I got up at 5:45 to watch the sunrise over the mountains. At first there were a lot of clouds and it wasn’t very pretty, but then the clouds started to clear and these big rays of pinkish orange shot up over the mountains like huge spotlights. It was amazing. Then I went back to the cabin and sat outside for a while, thinking about how much I didn’t want to leave and go back to the big stinky city. We packed up, ate breakfast, and started to say our goodbyes. We went down to Petri’s hut and said goodbye to him and as we walked back up the hill, he called out goodbye again and his voice kind of cracked and he just stood there waving for a really long time. We said goodbye to Ernest, which was really hard because he had been such an amazing guide and teacher and friend. Everyone kept asking when we were coming back, and it was hard to say that we probably weren’t. As we drove away and I looked back at the people waving and started to cry, and couldn’t stop for the next 20 or 30 minutes of the drive. Every time I looked up at the landscape or the little kids on the side of the road waving, I was reminded of the warmth of the people in Samburu or how much Ernest had shared with us or Doc’s smile. I couldn’t believe how much I had fallen in love with this place in less than a week of being there, and how much it was breaking my heart to leave.
I cheered up a little though, when we saw a lot of giraffes and a few ostriches on our way out. We hadn’t seen much wildlife besides the zebras and gazelles and impala because the rainy season was just barely starting when we were there. I guess those 4 nights of downpour helped though, and the giraffes were along the sides of the road eating leaves and stopping to stare at us. It took us about 8 hours to drive home and then we were back in crazy Nairobi where I had to squeeze onto a matatu with my hiking backpack, a sleeping bag, and a 5 liter container of water and the man made me pay for two seats. I hope some day I will make it back to Samburu.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
the 411
Wednesday started off well with class taking place. Class was okay except for comments like “Terrorism is only found in Arabs” and “I don’t mean to be politically incorrect, but he might become a homosexual,” from both my professor and the girl sitting next to me. After class, Whitney and I took Olungah out to our favorite restaurant “Habesha” which is the Ethiopian place down the street. The men who work there are starting to get to know us because we eat there so frequently and they give us big smiles when we come in. Olungah liked the food, and we always do, so it was nice, especially since we haven’t seen him in about a week. He told me that the word “Uhabeshi” means “Ethiopia” in kiSwahili. So maybe that is where their name derives from? I have no idea what Habesha means. I should ask next time….
The end of the day on Wednesday was really frustrating. Whitney and I walked to the safari office after class. When we got there, they told us first that it was cancelled, and second that if we wanted to go we had to pay twice as much. Then after I told them I couldn’t go, they said “just kidding”, but it is $10 more a day. Hilarious! After we gave them all of their money (in U.S. dollars) we were talking about the trip and they told us that we would have to bring all of our own water…which is a lot, and then finally that they were surprised we wanted to go to Samburu because it’s dry there and you can’t really see anything and that we should have gone to Maasai Mara. So that pissed me off because it would have been nice to know beforehand so I didn’t spend half of the spending money I have on a trip that they say won’t be that good. Ugh. I am trying to go into it with no negative expectations though. At the very least we will be on (or walking next to) camels riding through the desert, which is quite an experience in itself!
Then, because it took a while at the office, trying to get a matatu was impossible. The first one I finally got on to, kicked me off because there weren’t enough seats. Then there wasn’t one for about 10 minutes, which is rare. Then when one finally came, they didn’t seem to care about seat regulations, and crammed as many people onto the matatu as possible so that I was pushed up against the metal backing of two seats near the door among about 40 sweaty, really smelly men. THEN when I wanted to get off, the man charged me 10 more shillings than the normal fare is, which is ridiculous especially because I couldn’t even sit, but I would have done anything to get off of that matatu. On my way home I passed a man laying face down in the dirt that I am pretty sure was dead…or close to it. So I got home and took my frustration out on my dirty laundry. Nothing better to relieve tension than scrubbing some clothes in a bucket.
So we are off to Samburu tomorrow and I will not be writing for a while. I hope everyone has a good week!
The end of the day on Wednesday was really frustrating. Whitney and I walked to the safari office after class. When we got there, they told us first that it was cancelled, and second that if we wanted to go we had to pay twice as much. Then after I told them I couldn’t go, they said “just kidding”, but it is $10 more a day. Hilarious! After we gave them all of their money (in U.S. dollars) we were talking about the trip and they told us that we would have to bring all of our own water…which is a lot, and then finally that they were surprised we wanted to go to Samburu because it’s dry there and you can’t really see anything and that we should have gone to Maasai Mara. So that pissed me off because it would have been nice to know beforehand so I didn’t spend half of the spending money I have on a trip that they say won’t be that good. Ugh. I am trying to go into it with no negative expectations though. At the very least we will be on (or walking next to) camels riding through the desert, which is quite an experience in itself!
Then, because it took a while at the office, trying to get a matatu was impossible. The first one I finally got on to, kicked me off because there weren’t enough seats. Then there wasn’t one for about 10 minutes, which is rare. Then when one finally came, they didn’t seem to care about seat regulations, and crammed as many people onto the matatu as possible so that I was pushed up against the metal backing of two seats near the door among about 40 sweaty, really smelly men. THEN when I wanted to get off, the man charged me 10 more shillings than the normal fare is, which is ridiculous especially because I couldn’t even sit, but I would have done anything to get off of that matatu. On my way home I passed a man laying face down in the dirt that I am pretty sure was dead…or close to it. So I got home and took my frustration out on my dirty laundry. Nothing better to relieve tension than scrubbing some clothes in a bucket.
So we are off to Samburu tomorrow and I will not be writing for a while. I hope everyone has a good week!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
the cultural experience
First of all, I want to say Happy Birthday to my little cousin Tommy who is turning 4 today : )
Tuesday was HOT. It must have been at least 90 degrees and humid. After drumming, I met Whitney and we went to confirm our camel safari. We are going back Wednesday (which will be today when I post this) to meet our guide and get oriented. For lunch, we decided to try “Wimpy” which is a burger place that Njuhi recommended. It was packed and there were no free tables, so we sat down at a four-person table with a woman and her small and silent child. The woman turned out to be really nice and we talked a lot with her. She’s from Nairobi and moved to the UK 8 years ago. She was home for two weeks for Easter. She asked where we were living and when I told her Kariokor, she went “Aaahh ha ha ha! You are really getting the cultural experience!” She asked me how I get back and forth and I said on a matatu, then she asked me if I got scared, to which I replied “sometimes.” Despite her reaction, which I get from most people, it was nice because she said that Whitney and Jenna living where they are, are not getting the “full cultural experience” because living at the YWCA or in Karen is “western”. So it made me feel a little better than when most people react that way. Oooh man. It was nice talking to her though, and a pleasant reminder of how friendly most Kenyans are.
We had class at 2 and then all headed home. On the way to the matatu the sky started to get really dark and then when I got off the matatu, it started to rain and thunder. Just as I stepped inside the apartment, the skies opened up and it POURED! It rained really hard for about an hour, and the temperature must have dropped at least 30 degrees. I looked out my window and there were just rivers of mud. I think the rainy season has officially begun : )
Tuesday was HOT. It must have been at least 90 degrees and humid. After drumming, I met Whitney and we went to confirm our camel safari. We are going back Wednesday (which will be today when I post this) to meet our guide and get oriented. For lunch, we decided to try “Wimpy” which is a burger place that Njuhi recommended. It was packed and there were no free tables, so we sat down at a four-person table with a woman and her small and silent child. The woman turned out to be really nice and we talked a lot with her. She’s from Nairobi and moved to the UK 8 years ago. She was home for two weeks for Easter. She asked where we were living and when I told her Kariokor, she went “Aaahh ha ha ha! You are really getting the cultural experience!” She asked me how I get back and forth and I said on a matatu, then she asked me if I got scared, to which I replied “sometimes.” Despite her reaction, which I get from most people, it was nice because she said that Whitney and Jenna living where they are, are not getting the “full cultural experience” because living at the YWCA or in Karen is “western”. So it made me feel a little better than when most people react that way. Oooh man. It was nice talking to her though, and a pleasant reminder of how friendly most Kenyans are.
We had class at 2 and then all headed home. On the way to the matatu the sky started to get really dark and then when I got off the matatu, it started to rain and thunder. Just as I stepped inside the apartment, the skies opened up and it POURED! It rained really hard for about an hour, and the temperature must have dropped at least 30 degrees. I looked out my window and there were just rivers of mud. I think the rainy season has officially begun : )
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
monday monday
Monday was another slow day. I hung out at home, reading and watching TV until about 2:30, when I left to meet Whitney in the city to register for classes. The whole weekend the city has been so empty because everyone goes home (to outer parts of Kenya) for the holiday. It is totally bizarre seeing the streets like this, and being able to ride in a matatu that is almost constantly moving. Registering took over an hour because the internet is so unreliable and computers are slow, etc. But, I am registered for four classes, even though registering does not guarantee me a spot in any of them, so I am not sure why it is so necessary to do this, especially while abroad : )
After being fully frustrated, we went to Java House where Whitney got an amazing sundae, which I helped her eat. Then it started to pour. The rain was only getting harder, so I decided to go catch the matatu home. As I got off the matatu, the sun came out in one corner of the sky and I looked all around for a rainbow, but I didn’t see one anywhere. Then, as I turned the corner onto my street, there it was; a big band of colors cutting across the sky. It looked like if I kept walking all the way down that road, I would eventually come to it. I always see rainbows as a sign of something good. When I got home, Monica’s cousin was there. I told them about the rainbow and she said, laughing, that when it is raining and the sun is out, that means a hyena is having a baby in the river. I told her I would keep my eyes out for hyenas.
I talked to Sarah Sterling briefly online today and she asked me if I liked Nairobi. I told her that I don’t know if I “like” it or if I ever will “like” it, but it is definitely becoming a lot more comfortable being here, as I know my surroundings a little better, and I’ve put some things on my walls in my room, etc. I talked to Whitney today at Java House about how it seems like, even if we get used to being here, we will always be seen as outsiders because we are white. Every single day I have people on the streets saying “Mzungu!, Karibu Kenya!” : “White person! Welcome to Kenya!.” This is often followed by an offer for a safari or to come see their shop to buy souvenirs. So, even as I get used to being here, I feel like I will never be seen as someone who belongs here, or is living here for more than a week or two. It’s a very frustrating and exhausting feeling, and one that is hard to express in words. I don’t know if words could have ever prepared me for this experience, because I think a lot of them would have been brushed off or not fully believed. There is no way to ever know how it feels unless you are in it every day. I cannot leave my house without being glared at, called out to, followed by somebody, or offered something in exchange for money. I am constantly wishing my skin could be just one shade darker, or that I could at least be male, so I could blend in on some level. As challenging as it is, I know it will be helpful in the future, and somehow I will be glad to have experienced it.
After being fully frustrated, we went to Java House where Whitney got an amazing sundae, which I helped her eat. Then it started to pour. The rain was only getting harder, so I decided to go catch the matatu home. As I got off the matatu, the sun came out in one corner of the sky and I looked all around for a rainbow, but I didn’t see one anywhere. Then, as I turned the corner onto my street, there it was; a big band of colors cutting across the sky. It looked like if I kept walking all the way down that road, I would eventually come to it. I always see rainbows as a sign of something good. When I got home, Monica’s cousin was there. I told them about the rainbow and she said, laughing, that when it is raining and the sun is out, that means a hyena is having a baby in the river. I told her I would keep my eyes out for hyenas.
I talked to Sarah Sterling briefly online today and she asked me if I liked Nairobi. I told her that I don’t know if I “like” it or if I ever will “like” it, but it is definitely becoming a lot more comfortable being here, as I know my surroundings a little better, and I’ve put some things on my walls in my room, etc. I talked to Whitney today at Java House about how it seems like, even if we get used to being here, we will always be seen as outsiders because we are white. Every single day I have people on the streets saying “Mzungu!, Karibu Kenya!” : “White person! Welcome to Kenya!.” This is often followed by an offer for a safari or to come see their shop to buy souvenirs. So, even as I get used to being here, I feel like I will never be seen as someone who belongs here, or is living here for more than a week or two. It’s a very frustrating and exhausting feeling, and one that is hard to express in words. I don’t know if words could have ever prepared me for this experience, because I think a lot of them would have been brushed off or not fully believed. There is no way to ever know how it feels unless you are in it every day. I cannot leave my house without being glared at, called out to, followed by somebody, or offered something in exchange for money. I am constantly wishing my skin could be just one shade darker, or that I could at least be male, so I could blend in on some level. As challenging as it is, I know it will be helpful in the future, and somehow I will be glad to have experienced it.
Monday, April 9, 2007
loooong weekend
Friday there was no class for the holiday. I went into town to have a drumming lesson, which was mostly good. When I got back to my house, Whitney and Dolly and Monique (my cousins) were over. Monique is the youngest of Whitney’s sisters and just got home from boarding school. She is 14, I think. I asked her how school was and she said “traumatizing”. Chipa, Whitney, Dolly and I played this game called “Ludo” which is sort of like Sorry, but the board is shaped differently and you can block people from passing if you have two of your people on the same spot. It was fun. We also played uno (which we called moja) so that Dolly could understand why you had to say uno when you had one card. Moja means “one” in Kiswahili : )
After they left I watched the news and there was a story about this man in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia who holds the world record for laughing for one hour and 45 minutes. He goes to orphanages in the city and uses his laughing “talents” to make kids laugh. There was this whole clip of this guy laughing hysterically and all these little kids giggling, it was really cute. It reminded me of Mary Poppins.
Saturday was pretty low key. I went into the city and found a bookstore and bought a book called “The White Masaai” about a European woman who went to Kenya on vacation with her boyfriend and fell in love with a Masaai man, married him, and lived in his hut with his mother and other family. I am excited to read it. Whitney and I tried our Dormans, a coffee shop and it was nice. For the rest of the day we just hung out, played board games with Chipa, and watched “Pursuit of Happiness.” We did have a man ride by on a bike though and yell to us “Wazungu! Can I rape you?” That was pretty shocking…
Lucky that Saturday was low key because I woke up at 5:45 on Sunday to go to church for Easter. The service was at 7 and Whitney met Monica and I there. It was at Monica’s church, which is Anglican. That service was relatively short, and then at 9 we were off to a Catholic church in Donholm where Monica’s friends’ children were getting baptized and first communion-ed. They had four kids-two girls about 10 and 5, and then twin boys who were about a year and a half old. The boys, Jasper and Jeremy, were pretty cute. Jasper was pretty flirty and played with us, while Jeremy didn’t want to let go of his dad’s neck. The parents assigned Whitney and I as official photographers for the service, which besides being the only white people there, made us stand out a lot more as we were obnoxiously trying to make our way through crowds to photograph the four kids. The service was Catholic, and was 3.5 hours long! There was really good music though, and a lot of it, with percussion and beautiful voices. The church was packed to the brim and people were singing and dancing, and it made the 3.5 hours seem not as long. During the service, there was this adorable little girl who kept walking up to me and just standing there and smiling. She was about a year old and just had two little bottom teeth, and she would just stand there grinning at me. It was adorable.
After the service, we were driven to the family’s house where there were at least 30 kids, and a lot of really good food. So we stuffed ourselves and played with kids and talked to a really funny woman who teased Whitney for not eating enough and said that she eats “this much” because she is African, gesturing towards the mountain of food on her plate. She said she tries to gain weight, but she can’t, she even tried eating chips (French fries) for lunch and supper every day for a month, and stuffing the sides of her pants with tissues to try and “get a figure”. She cracked us up.
So Easter was a long day, but a good one. We met a lot of new people and spent time with a lot of cute kids, and saw new parts of the city. I am really glad to have experienced it in a different part of the world.
After they left I watched the news and there was a story about this man in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia who holds the world record for laughing for one hour and 45 minutes. He goes to orphanages in the city and uses his laughing “talents” to make kids laugh. There was this whole clip of this guy laughing hysterically and all these little kids giggling, it was really cute. It reminded me of Mary Poppins.
Saturday was pretty low key. I went into the city and found a bookstore and bought a book called “The White Masaai” about a European woman who went to Kenya on vacation with her boyfriend and fell in love with a Masaai man, married him, and lived in his hut with his mother and other family. I am excited to read it. Whitney and I tried our Dormans, a coffee shop and it was nice. For the rest of the day we just hung out, played board games with Chipa, and watched “Pursuit of Happiness.” We did have a man ride by on a bike though and yell to us “Wazungu! Can I rape you?” That was pretty shocking…
Lucky that Saturday was low key because I woke up at 5:45 on Sunday to go to church for Easter. The service was at 7 and Whitney met Monica and I there. It was at Monica’s church, which is Anglican. That service was relatively short, and then at 9 we were off to a Catholic church in Donholm where Monica’s friends’ children were getting baptized and first communion-ed. They had four kids-two girls about 10 and 5, and then twin boys who were about a year and a half old. The boys, Jasper and Jeremy, were pretty cute. Jasper was pretty flirty and played with us, while Jeremy didn’t want to let go of his dad’s neck. The parents assigned Whitney and I as official photographers for the service, which besides being the only white people there, made us stand out a lot more as we were obnoxiously trying to make our way through crowds to photograph the four kids. The service was Catholic, and was 3.5 hours long! There was really good music though, and a lot of it, with percussion and beautiful voices. The church was packed to the brim and people were singing and dancing, and it made the 3.5 hours seem not as long. During the service, there was this adorable little girl who kept walking up to me and just standing there and smiling. She was about a year old and just had two little bottom teeth, and she would just stand there grinning at me. It was adorable.
After the service, we were driven to the family’s house where there were at least 30 kids, and a lot of really good food. So we stuffed ourselves and played with kids and talked to a really funny woman who teased Whitney for not eating enough and said that she eats “this much” because she is African, gesturing towards the mountain of food on her plate. She said she tries to gain weight, but she can’t, she even tried eating chips (French fries) for lunch and supper every day for a month, and stuffing the sides of her pants with tissues to try and “get a figure”. She cracked us up.
So Easter was a long day, but a good one. We met a lot of new people and spent time with a lot of cute kids, and saw new parts of the city. I am really glad to have experienced it in a different part of the world.
Friday, April 6, 2007
lucky 47
Every morning while I eat breakfast, the radio is on BBC’s African news program. Thursday, they announced that Eritrea has made female circumcision illegal. I am not sure how I feel about this, because it is obviously going to continue to happen, but maybe now it will just go underground and become less safe, as abortion has in some places. On the other hand, I guess it’s good that the government is recognizing it as something that is harming a lot of women.
After writing about not ever having class for more than two hours, today we had it for three! It was my favorite class though (Anthro of Infectious Diseases), so I didn’t mind. I love the class and the professor, but the people in my class are ridiculous sometimes. I have never witnessed so much blatant racism, as well as homophobia and sexism. One girl in class today was saying that the reason Kenya has so many health problems is because Somali refugees are coming in and they are dirty and spread disease. Meanwhile, there is a Somali kid sitting behind me who obviously got very offended. Then the same kid, on a separate subject was saying that women have more diseases because they share everything like clothes and accessories. The professor listened to his long argument, and then she just smiled and said “I don’t think so.” I love her!
Rachel informed me that I got room draw number 47 back at Bryn Mawr, so that is exciting. I have really lucked out with these room draw numbers the past couple years. So hopefully we will get a sweet suite somewhere : ) Speaking of Bryn Mawr, I emailed coach to tell her I can’t really run much while I am here and asked for other ways to get/stay in shape. She gave me a 30-minute workout that I did this afternoon and it kicked my butt. I don’t know if I will be able to walk tomorrow. It feels good to be sore though : ) After that, I played some desperate housewives game with Chipa on his phone, which was pretty fun. Then he showed me some game with gangsters where you can kill anyone and take their money and steal their cars! He liked that a lot, but it kind of scared me and I wasn’t very good at the game (and didn’t fully understand the objective). It made us both laugh though, which was fun.
On the news tonight, there was this baby that was skeletal. Its skin was wrinkly and sagging off and you could see every bone in its body. Its hair was thin and gray. It was so sad. I didn’t understand what the story was because it was in Kiswahili. Monica said that the baby was sick, probably with TB, and got turned away from the hospital. She said the problem with hospitals here is that you can go there and sometimes they don’t even have medicine. She said, “If you don’t have money you can just die”. It was exactly what we had talked about in my class earlier. It was heart breaking to see that baby, and so sad to know that it won’t get help and will most likely die.
This weekend is Easter. Both Friday and Monday are public holidays. I am excited to experience Easter here. It is my favorite Christian holiday.
After writing about not ever having class for more than two hours, today we had it for three! It was my favorite class though (Anthro of Infectious Diseases), so I didn’t mind. I love the class and the professor, but the people in my class are ridiculous sometimes. I have never witnessed so much blatant racism, as well as homophobia and sexism. One girl in class today was saying that the reason Kenya has so many health problems is because Somali refugees are coming in and they are dirty and spread disease. Meanwhile, there is a Somali kid sitting behind me who obviously got very offended. Then the same kid, on a separate subject was saying that women have more diseases because they share everything like clothes and accessories. The professor listened to his long argument, and then she just smiled and said “I don’t think so.” I love her!
Rachel informed me that I got room draw number 47 back at Bryn Mawr, so that is exciting. I have really lucked out with these room draw numbers the past couple years. So hopefully we will get a sweet suite somewhere : ) Speaking of Bryn Mawr, I emailed coach to tell her I can’t really run much while I am here and asked for other ways to get/stay in shape. She gave me a 30-minute workout that I did this afternoon and it kicked my butt. I don’t know if I will be able to walk tomorrow. It feels good to be sore though : ) After that, I played some desperate housewives game with Chipa on his phone, which was pretty fun. Then he showed me some game with gangsters where you can kill anyone and take their money and steal their cars! He liked that a lot, but it kind of scared me and I wasn’t very good at the game (and didn’t fully understand the objective). It made us both laugh though, which was fun.
On the news tonight, there was this baby that was skeletal. Its skin was wrinkly and sagging off and you could see every bone in its body. Its hair was thin and gray. It was so sad. I didn’t understand what the story was because it was in Kiswahili. Monica said that the baby was sick, probably with TB, and got turned away from the hospital. She said the problem with hospitals here is that you can go there and sometimes they don’t even have medicine. She said, “If you don’t have money you can just die”. It was exactly what we had talked about in my class earlier. It was heart breaking to see that baby, and so sad to know that it won’t get help and will most likely die.
This weekend is Easter. Both Friday and Monday are public holidays. I am excited to experience Easter here. It is my favorite Christian holiday.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
funny with the jokes
Joke of the day from Chipa:
Person one: I took my wife to the Islands.
Person two: Jamaica?
Person one: no she wanted to go!
Bahahahahhah
Today I put on my new sandals and walked to the matatu to go to school. I got there, sat down, and then my sandal broke! The strap just came off! While I was sitting! So then I had to walk all the way to school (about a mile) with a sandal that wouldn’t stay on. It was very frustrating. Luckily the day before I had left my running shoes at Whitney’s so she brought them to class for me and I didn’t have to walk home with one sandal and one bare foot.
I went to school and had Kiswahili. I know about 15 verbs now and some nouns too. I can make some “beautiful sentences” as my teacher says. After class, Whitney and I went to the theater next to school because I saw a poster for a talent show being performed by orphans. I was really excited because I envisioned cute little kids juggling or singing or reading a poem. When we got there it was grown men and women putting on a play about marriage. It was interesting, but not as exciting as I had initially hoped, so I only stayed about 20 minutes.
On the way to the matatu I knew it was going to be hard to get a matatu home. The streets were so crowded that walking was almost at a standstill. This meant that everyone was trying to get home, and the busses were going to be packed, and there were going to be huge crowds of people trying to get on these already packed busses. I was right. The first 4 matatus that came were full and could only let on 2 people at the most. Every time one drove up, people swarmed it, making it impossible to get on. So when the next one came, I grabbed on to the bar by the door and just ran with it until it stopped. Then the swarm came, but I had a hand on the door bar. People still had to get off the matatu, while the people behind me were pushing harder to get on. I had to put my face straight up to the sky just so I could breathe. I did make it on though, and got a seat so I wasn’t kicked off. It was pretty crazy though. Some days when I get on I am the only one and we have to sit and wait for the matatu to fill up, and some days it is like that. I can’t figure out a pattern as to when it’s crowded and when it’s empty.
Poor Chipa is still not doing well. He ran out of painkillers last night and was pretty miserable. I was telling him about how in high school I tore the ligaments in both my knees and we talked about how frustrating it is to have to sit and wait to get better when all you want to do is go out and do things. So we had a nice little bonding experience while watching the Tyra show.
Person one: I took my wife to the Islands.
Person two: Jamaica?
Person one: no she wanted to go!
Bahahahahhah
Today I put on my new sandals and walked to the matatu to go to school. I got there, sat down, and then my sandal broke! The strap just came off! While I was sitting! So then I had to walk all the way to school (about a mile) with a sandal that wouldn’t stay on. It was very frustrating. Luckily the day before I had left my running shoes at Whitney’s so she brought them to class for me and I didn’t have to walk home with one sandal and one bare foot.
I went to school and had Kiswahili. I know about 15 verbs now and some nouns too. I can make some “beautiful sentences” as my teacher says. After class, Whitney and I went to the theater next to school because I saw a poster for a talent show being performed by orphans. I was really excited because I envisioned cute little kids juggling or singing or reading a poem. When we got there it was grown men and women putting on a play about marriage. It was interesting, but not as exciting as I had initially hoped, so I only stayed about 20 minutes.
On the way to the matatu I knew it was going to be hard to get a matatu home. The streets were so crowded that walking was almost at a standstill. This meant that everyone was trying to get home, and the busses were going to be packed, and there were going to be huge crowds of people trying to get on these already packed busses. I was right. The first 4 matatus that came were full and could only let on 2 people at the most. Every time one drove up, people swarmed it, making it impossible to get on. So when the next one came, I grabbed on to the bar by the door and just ran with it until it stopped. Then the swarm came, but I had a hand on the door bar. People still had to get off the matatu, while the people behind me were pushing harder to get on. I had to put my face straight up to the sky just so I could breathe. I did make it on though, and got a seat so I wasn’t kicked off. It was pretty crazy though. Some days when I get on I am the only one and we have to sit and wait for the matatu to fill up, and some days it is like that. I can’t figure out a pattern as to when it’s crowded and when it’s empty.
Poor Chipa is still not doing well. He ran out of painkillers last night and was pretty miserable. I was telling him about how in high school I tore the ligaments in both my knees and we talked about how frustrating it is to have to sit and wait to get better when all you want to do is go out and do things. So we had a nice little bonding experience while watching the Tyra show.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
shopping day
Tuesday was a shopping day. I made my first purchase at Masaai Market. Whitney and I went with my cousin Cheryl and it was a good thing she was there to bargain in Kiswahili, and to be a non-foreign presence. She was able to bring down some prices for us : ) I ended up getting a really cool pair of sandals for Ksh 250.
We had our first Culture and Communication class today with the “drunkard” professor, as students here call him. All of our classes are supposed to be in 3 hour blocks because they only meet once a week, but we have yet to have one for more than two hours. Today’s was one hour. It was nice to actually have class though.
When I got to Kariokor, I decided to try and brave the markets alone. I ended up getting some really cool stuff, including a lot of really pretty beaded jewelry. I got about 10 or 12 different things and brought the total price down from 5,500 to 2,250, though I did have to get rid of a 3 small items : )
After dinner and after everyone was in bed, I discovered a large selection of movies in the cabinet next to the TV. So I spent the next hour and a half watching Sister Act. It was wonderful.
We had our first Culture and Communication class today with the “drunkard” professor, as students here call him. All of our classes are supposed to be in 3 hour blocks because they only meet once a week, but we have yet to have one for more than two hours. Today’s was one hour. It was nice to actually have class though.
When I got to Kariokor, I decided to try and brave the markets alone. I ended up getting some really cool stuff, including a lot of really pretty beaded jewelry. I got about 10 or 12 different things and brought the total price down from 5,500 to 2,250, though I did have to get rid of a 3 small items : )
After dinner and after everyone was in bed, I discovered a large selection of movies in the cabinet next to the TV. So I spent the next hour and a half watching Sister Act. It was wonderful.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Monday Monday
Monday I had drumming at 9. I was supposed to have Kiswahili after that, but it was cancelled, so I hung out for a while and read outside. Jenna, Whitney and I went to the Ethiopian restaurant near school for lunch, and it was amazing, again. The past two times we have gotten the “mixed dish” which is a huge piece of injera (Ethiopian flat bread) with little piles of all different things, like minced beef, cabbage, kale, carrots and potatoes, among other things. With it, we got this orange stuff (I can’t remember the name), but it is chickpeas and regular peas all mashed up with lots of spices. I am making it sound like hummus, but it is a lot smoother and less solid and more orange and a lot more delicious. So I would pick up whichever food with the injera, and then dip it in the chickpea mash…and it was just SO good. Mmm.
After that we had Anthropology of Infectious Diseases with Professor Bukachi, who is my favorite professor. She is the only woman professor I have met, and the only one who regularly holds class, and the smiliest one. The class is really interesting, and so far it’s my favorite as well…it is also the only one I have had more than once : )
After class Whitney and I went to the grocery store (Nakumatt). I love the grocery stores here. Whenever I am there, regardless of what I need (if anything), I walk up and down every single aisle. Maybe because I have only been to grocery stores in the U.S, which are all pretty much organized the same way, but I find looking at every shelf here so fascinating. I bet people reading this are starting to wonder about my sanity, so I will stop there : )
On my way to the matatu to go home, I saw a man carrying at least 2 chickens, live and fully alert, upside down by the legs. I also saw, on a sadder note, a woman sitting in the middle of the sidewalk today wailing, with her hand to her face. On her lap, facing her was a little boy about a year old, just sitting there, looking at me as I passed. It made my heart ache. The past two times I have seen grown people crying like that in public places (the last time was in Mount Auburn Hospital when I saw a man in the waiting room with tears running down his face) I have wanted to go up and talk to them and hug them, but maybe that would make them cry more. It is really hard to just walk by though.
Tonight I asked Monica what the word “lakini” meant because I hear it a lot. She said it meant “but” and then said “Nakupenda lakini…I love you buut…” It was so funny. She is a really funny lady sometimes. She is usually pretty quiet, but every once in a while she makes a subtle joke like that and cracks me up. I love when she laughs. Also, she made really good mashed potatoes tonight. So two thumbs up for Monica!
After that we had Anthropology of Infectious Diseases with Professor Bukachi, who is my favorite professor. She is the only woman professor I have met, and the only one who regularly holds class, and the smiliest one. The class is really interesting, and so far it’s my favorite as well…it is also the only one I have had more than once : )
After class Whitney and I went to the grocery store (Nakumatt). I love the grocery stores here. Whenever I am there, regardless of what I need (if anything), I walk up and down every single aisle. Maybe because I have only been to grocery stores in the U.S, which are all pretty much organized the same way, but I find looking at every shelf here so fascinating. I bet people reading this are starting to wonder about my sanity, so I will stop there : )
On my way to the matatu to go home, I saw a man carrying at least 2 chickens, live and fully alert, upside down by the legs. I also saw, on a sadder note, a woman sitting in the middle of the sidewalk today wailing, with her hand to her face. On her lap, facing her was a little boy about a year old, just sitting there, looking at me as I passed. It made my heart ache. The past two times I have seen grown people crying like that in public places (the last time was in Mount Auburn Hospital when I saw a man in the waiting room with tears running down his face) I have wanted to go up and talk to them and hug them, but maybe that would make them cry more. It is really hard to just walk by though.
Tonight I asked Monica what the word “lakini” meant because I hear it a lot. She said it meant “but” and then said “Nakupenda lakini…I love you buut…” It was so funny. She is a really funny lady sometimes. She is usually pretty quiet, but every once in a while she makes a subtle joke like that and cracks me up. I love when she laughs. Also, she made really good mashed potatoes tonight. So two thumbs up for Monica!
Monday, April 2, 2007
it's april!
My weekend was pretty relaxed. Friday I slept in and came into the city for drumming, and then met Jenna and Whitney. We went to a bar and had a beer , then went back to Whitney’s (YWCA) and had dinner. I ended up sleeping there, and the next morning Whitney and I went to meet Jenna in Karen to go to the giraffe center where you can feed giraffes. She said to call once we got there, so we caught the bus, rode for about 45 minutes, and called her, but no answer. Eventually she texted us saying she couldn’t come because she had to stay home. Her family’s friend was beaten to death by her husband, who paid off the police and then fled to his home village, and the family wanted Jenna there for their day of mourning when friends and extended family were coming over. So that is really sad, and we are going to do the giraffes another time. On the way home on the matatu, for a while we were the only two on it, and the guy working on it asked us if we had ever heard of Jesus Christ, and why we hadn’t accepted him into our hearts. I wondered why he just assumed we hadn’t. Do I look like I haven’t accepted Jesus Christ into my heart? Was it the American accent? Anyway, we got to listen to him preach to us for abut 20 minutes about how great Jesus Christ is.
I went home for a few hours Saturday afternoon, then came back to the YWCA and hung out with Whitney and my cousins. It’s nice being with them, and being in a full house, especially one full of women : ) They are pretty funny and range in ages from 18 to 23. The ones who are home now (one is in boarding school and two are in college abroad) are Michelle, Rhoda, Dolly, and Cheryl. When I am there, I sleep in the girls’ room which is one room with two sets of bunk beds, and I sort of feel like I am in the Brady Bunch : )
At about 11 we went out to this club called Carnivore, which is either the “best” or “biggest” club in all of Africa. I can’t remember…maybe both? They were having some huge event sponsored by Coke and MTV, where they had 10 famous African rappers and singers performing. There was an outdoor stage, lots of lights and cameras, and a HUGE extremely energetic crowd. It was really fun to be there, and these performers must have been pretty famous because the crowd (including Michelle and Dolly) were going crazy and screaming. I think it was like the equivalent to a Justin Timberlake (+9 other MTV stars) concert in the U.S. We were there until about 2:30, spending a lot of time fighting off overly-touchy men, and then we left to go to another club. We danced there until 4:30am. When we got home the birds were chirping…a sign that it was definitely time for sleep. As tiring as going out to these clubs is, it is actually really refreshing and recharges my good feelings about being here. I was sitting in this club at 4am thinking, “wow I really like it here”, after a week of no classes and being bored and frustrated. And this is coming from someone who would choose playing scrabble on a Saturday night over going out dancing back in the U.S. It is just really nice to be able to hang out with people and have fun, after a long week.
Sunday I hung out at the cousins house and watched TV and read. I came home later that afternoon and walked next to two women who were talking and laughing. Something in one of the women’s hand caught my eye, and it turned out to be a live chicken that she was holding by the wings. It was just sitting there, being carried, not struggling at all. It was really interesting to see. I just wanted to share that mental image.
When I got home I hung out with Chipa, who hasn’t been feeling well because of a recent operation. It was nice to see him up though and laughing. We watched two of our favorite TV shows, Nanny 911 and Judging Amy. I am really catching up on years of TV that I haven’t watched. Who knew these shows could be so entertaining?
I went home for a few hours Saturday afternoon, then came back to the YWCA and hung out with Whitney and my cousins. It’s nice being with them, and being in a full house, especially one full of women : ) They are pretty funny and range in ages from 18 to 23. The ones who are home now (one is in boarding school and two are in college abroad) are Michelle, Rhoda, Dolly, and Cheryl. When I am there, I sleep in the girls’ room which is one room with two sets of bunk beds, and I sort of feel like I am in the Brady Bunch : )
At about 11 we went out to this club called Carnivore, which is either the “best” or “biggest” club in all of Africa. I can’t remember…maybe both? They were having some huge event sponsored by Coke and MTV, where they had 10 famous African rappers and singers performing. There was an outdoor stage, lots of lights and cameras, and a HUGE extremely energetic crowd. It was really fun to be there, and these performers must have been pretty famous because the crowd (including Michelle and Dolly) were going crazy and screaming. I think it was like the equivalent to a Justin Timberlake (+9 other MTV stars) concert in the U.S. We were there until about 2:30, spending a lot of time fighting off overly-touchy men, and then we left to go to another club. We danced there until 4:30am. When we got home the birds were chirping…a sign that it was definitely time for sleep. As tiring as going out to these clubs is, it is actually really refreshing and recharges my good feelings about being here. I was sitting in this club at 4am thinking, “wow I really like it here”, after a week of no classes and being bored and frustrated. And this is coming from someone who would choose playing scrabble on a Saturday night over going out dancing back in the U.S. It is just really nice to be able to hang out with people and have fun, after a long week.
Sunday I hung out at the cousins house and watched TV and read. I came home later that afternoon and walked next to two women who were talking and laughing. Something in one of the women’s hand caught my eye, and it turned out to be a live chicken that she was holding by the wings. It was just sitting there, being carried, not struggling at all. It was really interesting to see. I just wanted to share that mental image.
When I got home I hung out with Chipa, who hasn’t been feeling well because of a recent operation. It was nice to see him up though and laughing. We watched two of our favorite TV shows, Nanny 911 and Judging Amy. I am really catching up on years of TV that I haven’t watched. Who knew these shows could be so entertaining?
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