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!