Happy May Day/Labor Day

Friday after class Whitney and I got a call from Sammy, a man we met in Samburu, who was in town for the evening, so we met him and had a beer before we went to meet Wairimu and a bunch of the kids from St. Lawrence at Alliance Francais to see Barbra Guantai sing. She was absolutely amazing and really beautiful. She had a really powerful voice and was accompanied by an awesome drummer on a drum set as well as one playing African drums, and a bassist and guitarist. It was really nice to hear some live music and be in such a diverse crowd of people. Afterwards we went out to get something to eat and drink at a restaurant called Kengeles (which I thought was called Kankles). Then we all went to the apartments the St. Lawrence kids are staying at in the city and hung out there for a long time. It was fun to hang out with people our own age outside of a classroom and after 5pm; I felt like I was in college again : )
Saturday I went home and then went back into the city to meet Geoffrey who is Liz Plunkett’s friend that she met in Rwanda. He lives and works in Western Kenya, but was in Nairobi for a few days doing some work there. He was a really nice guy and even paid for my coke after we talked for a long time at Nando’s (a restaurant in the city). He said sometime before I leave he’ll show me Western Kenya. When I was trying to catch the matatu it wouldn’t stop, but then this guy stopped it (by slamming his hand against the side of the bus) and when I got in he said “I was the guy who stopped it for you”, haha. We talked for a while and he told me he was Ethiopian and from Addis Ababa. He asked if I had had any traditional Ethiopian food since I’d been here and I said my favorite restaurant was Habesha and he told me his cousin was one of the owners! He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and offered to invite me over to he and his girlfriend’s house for njera sometime. I don’t know if that will happen, but it was good to talk to such a nice guy who wasn’t trying to pick me up. So Saturday was the day of talking to genuinely nice guys and that was very refreshing.
Sunday was a down day and I stayed home and did laundry and watched a lot of TV. On Monday I went to KENWA and met a woman who was really nice and said if I came back next Monday she would have a program set up for me. It seems like a cool place and I am excited to be doing AIDS work again. Afterwards I went to Whitney’s and we decided I should see a doctor since I have been having chest pains and dizziness, etc. So we went to the school health center where I talked to a doctor but he said he couldn’t listen to my chest because he had misplaced his stethoscope and couldn’t do a chest x-ray because the machine wasn’t there or wasn’t working or something. So he gave me some antibiotics and cough medicine even though I have no cough, and sent me off; which was not very comforting. I am going to follow up on that, hopefully with someone who has at the least a stethoscope. I think it’s probably just a combination of stress and the horrible air I breathe in every day (when I blow my nose it’s usually black from the dirt/smog –gross.) Anyway, that was my crazy weekend!