new friends

On Tuesday in my drumming class my teacher told me to play this one beat and then he joined in on his drum and we just played and played. I got totally lost in it and sometimes even forgot I was still playing. Then he stopped and got his guitar, while I was still drumming, and he started playing guitar and then singing a song. I ended up drumming for 40 minutes straight. I remember when I couldn’t play the same beat for more than 5 minutes without getting mixed up or stuck. Now it’s like my hands play and I don’t even think about it. It’s cool to feel that. It was also really cool to hear actual melodies and songs come out of my drumming.
After drumming I found out class was canceled because of the holiday so I went home. I love Nairobi on national holidays because there aren’t many people in the city and things are quiet and you can move around without colliding with people and cars.
I don’t know if the news program “Aljazeera” airs in the U.S. but it is a really interesting perspective on the world. They talk a lot about Iraq and on Tuesday said that President Bush has spent over $400 billion on the Iraq war since 4 years ago. Over 3,300 U.S. troops have died as well as over 750,000 Iraqis. They also said that when the war started, Bush had a 64% approval rate among Americans and he now has a 30% approval rate. I don’t know if they show these figures in the U.S. I am pretty sure they don’t put them on the news. Aljazeera also has these little commercials where they have different statistics like saying how many nuclear weapons different countries have, like “Germany 2, Russia 4, etc etc…” Then they get to Iran and say “1?” and then to the U.S. where the number is over 1,000. It is such a different perspective than we get in the U.S. and shows how much of a bully and hypocrite the rest of the world sees our country as. I was also surprised to hear about a program on the BBC African News Network about people’s dislikes about America. What surprised me is that the program is called “Death to America” because that seems so harsh, but I guess it is a reality. I wish more of our government would realize how the rest of the world feels about our country. They also announced on the news today that all public schools are going to be free now in Kenya, which is HUGE because most people cannot afford to send their kids to school because even public schools cost money.
It was so beautiful outside that I couldn’t stand to stay in and watch TV anymore so I decided to go find the basketball court in the neighborhood. It turned out to be two rows of flats behind my building and there were tons of kids playing there so I went and sat down next to two girls on a bench next to the court. They said hi and a few things and then left, so I watched for a while. This kid Malcolm who was the smallest was trying to get the ball from all the bigger guys and he was so serious and determined with his nostrils flared. He did manage to get the ball a couple times, but never kept it for very long. Some kids started talking to me and pretty soon there were a group of 10 or so of us talking. One girl, Mirab, is a soccer goalie too. She’s 15 and she wants to save up her money and go to America and open an African food restaurant and plait hair on the side : ) This little guy named Junior kept asking me about things in America like whether bicycles are free and whether people have bare feet. Mirab and I also talked about our families and siblings and their ages. She is the youngest of 4 and the only girl. It was really fun to talk to all of them and hang out with people in my neighborhood. I am meeting all of them tonight at 5:30 to talk more : )