I Don't Know Why I Swallowed the Fly, I Think I'll Die

I am trying my hand at gardening. I bought some seeds for cauliflower and mixed salad greens back when I was in Nairobi and have just now gotten around to planting them. Part of the problem was that I didn’t have anything to plant them in. I tried these little plastic cups but they kept blowing over. I can’t use the bare ground because I don’t have a jembe (hoe) and the dirt is too compact. There is also a forest of four inch high acacia trees that I would somehow have to uproot. My neighbors have plants in 20 liter jerry cans with the tops cut off, but I don’t have any spares I can use. Then, through my own stupidity, I found the perfect planting container. It is the large plastic tub that I use to take bucket baths in. I also use it for laundry and dishes. Last weekend I decided that it had been awhile since I’d done something really dumb, so I decided that I really needed to see something up close on the map hanging on my wall. I didn’t have anything to stand on so I, for some reason, chose to use the one container I use every single day. I stood on it and it, being plastic, broke. I was very pissed at myself. But it all turned out for the best because now have a nice big planting container complete with a large drainage hole in the bottom. On Sunday, I planted my seeds in concentric circles, lettuce on one side, cauliflower on the other, and watered it lovingly. The next day, like a sign from God, it rained on my little garden. Then it was sunny for a few hours, then it rained again, then it was sunny again. Besides the overwhelming joy I felt to be getting rain for the first time in six months, it was perfect weather for my baby plants and today they are starting to sprout. I am very excited to have salad. I miss salad. I am going to get some acacia branches to make a dik-dik proof fence; I will be very upset if a six-inch tall deer eats my salad. Now if I can just contrive to get someone to send me some blue cheese dressing, I will be all set. (yes, that was a hint )

Speaking of people sending me things; I want to say a big thank you to Denise of Beauty Supply Zone in Newport, CA for sending me the care package of beauty supplies and twizzlers. I don’t know if you read this, but you are a great friend and the best hairdresser a girl could ask for. I beautified my hair, exfoliated, painted my fingers and toes, and ate all the Twizzlers. The next day, everyone said how especially ‘smart’ I looked. Thanks for getting me a little bit closer to the clean, American girl I used to be.

There is a pack of feral dogs who live at my school. They are skinny, mangy looking things covered in large bugs. They are terrified of humans, because we all throw rocks at them. I don’t throw rocks, but I would if they came any where near me, they look diseased. One has an open wound that has been there for two months. Gross. One of the females had puppies and I gotta say, they are more adorable than non-feral puppies. I think because they are allowed to run free across the fields and roll in dust. The pack also just adopted a new female, she is dusty brown, though I think she would be white if she was given a bath. The other dogs love her and they all spent the day frolicking. She is a pretty young dog, and was barking a lot. The dogs rarely play, and never bark. My teachers are concerned that the strange behavior means that she has rabies. That would be just awful, not only would she die, but she’d probably infect the whole pack. And I’m sure my mother will be glad to hear about the pack of rabid dogs fenced in with me every day at school. But don’t worry, though I seem to enjoy taunting dangerous creatures, I draw the line at provoking rabid dogs. And besides, I have my rabies shot.

I know I have said this before, but I hate the bugs here. Today, I am going to complain about the flying creatures. The flies drive me crazy while I am walking to and from school. They like to land on my face, which is super annoying. About four times every second, a fly will land on my face, and I will reach up to brush it away. This is, obviously, very tiring and so I am trying to decrease my annoyance threshold. I let the fly land and see how long I can let it crawl around until I uncontrollably smack myself harshly in the face. The Kenyan children are especially good at the ignoring game; they will let the flies play in their eyelashes all day without a care. My time is up to about half a second. Yeah, I have a long way to go.

Sometimes, while the flies are using their tiny brains most effectively, they will fly up my nose. This happens WAY, way more than I would ever have thought possible. And if you think a fly up the nose is an awful prospect, just think how pleasant it is to get one in the mouth. Today I was taking a refreshing deep breath, with my mouth only open a few centimeters to avoid this exact situation, when the fly zoomed straight to the back of my tongue and got stuck. I tried to spit, but I was too dehydrated, so I just hacked and gagged for a minute and then, this is the worst part, I had to reach in my mouth with my hand to grab the fly and flick him away. Now is that not the most disgusting thing you have heard in awhile?
And I have another bug swallowing story for you, this one just shows you how truly strange I have become. A few weeks ago, I was over at St. Pauls’ school for a party. It was the same one where I learned how to dance Kenyan style. The drinks provided were cold Tusker, the beer of choice for Kenyans. I was taking a break from dancing and paused to take a big gulp of Tusker. Right before I swallowed, I noticed, with something like curiosity, that there was a moth IN my mouth. Yup, it had flown into my beer when I wasn’t looking and I drank him. Just gross-tastic. So I am sitting there, with a mouthful of beer and live moth, and I am thinking. Thinking! Right there I should have realized something was wrong with me. If you find there is a live bug in your mouth, you should never pause to contemplate the fact, just spit it out! But I sat there thinking; I thought “I have two options, spit the beer-moth out or swallow it”. Now which one did I do? I swallowed the moth. I must have temporarily (can two years be counted as temporary?) taken leave of my senses to put a higher value on a single mouthful of beer than my, not inconsiderable, desire to avoid eating insects. I told Brother Boniface about this and he laughed and said, “you should have let the moth go and encourage him to, next time, buy his own beer.”

I don’t know what game God is playing with me, but everytime I write something here, I get exactly what I didn’t want. Last week is was a new mouse enemy, and today, after I just wrote about my plans for a fence yesterday, I have someone’s paw marks roughing up my new garden. I can just picture God saying, “Oh, you said you DIDN'T want someone to uproot your lettuce? My mistake…”

I got the best compliment yesterday. Talking with the Minnesota students who were wanting to have a “no talent show” and I said that I would love to participate. I said that I have no talent, and while I know I am good at lots of things (lots and lots and lots of things), there is nothing that would win me the million on America’s Got Talent. I’m not good at sports, I can do nothing artistically, I can’t sing or dance, I can’t even do anything creepy like dislocate my shoulders to use my clasped arms as a jump rope (I know someone who can do that). But when I said that, Brother Steve said “your talent is courage”.

Ding Dong, the Mouse is Dead

You all remember my friend and unwanted roommate the mouse? Well, he is dead and I have won and I am sure you all want to hear the story. We have been competing as usual for a while. I have been stuffing a pair of pants that I don’t fit into anymore (cause I’m fat) in the space under my door to keep him out but he is very wily and sometimes sneaks in while I am visiting friends or in the choo. When he does, I chase him around with the broom for awhile. Sometimes I corner him and give a good whack, but usually I just get tired and reluctantly let him explore my house for the night. On Tuesday, I found him in my kitchen. That grosses me out and I am afraid he will get into my American food stash so I went after him. I noticed that he was missing half his tail. I don’t know if that was because of me or if he gets into mousy scuffles during his outside marauding hours. Either way, I thought to myself, “haHA! Jerk!” and trapped him behind my stove. I had a bucket in place on one side of the gas tank, hoping to drop it on him when he came out, and a wooden spoon for poking on the other side to encourage him to go into the bucket. I poked, he ran, and I squealed like a girl, dropped the bucket and spoon and fell over backwards. In my defense, my hand was low to the ground and the mouse TOUCHED me. (It was icky). As I was scrambling to get out of the mouse’s way, I noticed that he was not scampering away in fear like he should be. He was walking, WALKING, calmly to hide under the couch. Cocky bastard. I let him go, too lazy to go for him. Wednesday, I got home from school and opened my door only to be met with a smell. Now, my house is dirtier than it should be. I am not as proactive about dishes as I should be, but I make sure that everything is cleaned when it starts to smell. So when I walked in the house and was hit with the aroma of carcass, I knew something happened. It didn’t take me long to find him, my adversary, dead in the corner. I do not know what killed him, by the way he was moving the night before, I suspect some injury just got too much for him. Now, you’d think I would be happy. But, while I am glad I won’t have to fight with him anymore, I am more than a little concerned about what it was that took a BITE out of him after death. There was a large hole where his abdomen should have been and a pile of mouse hairs scattered around him. The only thought that goes through my head at times like this is, “where the hell do I live?”

Lokho brought me dinner on Tuesday night. For no reason at all, she just came over with a plate piled with food. She didn’t even stay, she said she had work to do around her house. To repay her for her kindness, when she came over on Wednesday I made potato pancakes for her. Kenyans only eat potatoes one way, peeled, boiled and served on rice as part of stew. Lokho had heard of mashed potatoes, but never had it, and she didn’t know you could eat the potato skins. We spent the evening sitting on my kitchen floor eating potato pancakes hot out of the pan. We gossiped about a 19 yr old teacher, fresh out of school, who has been staying with Lokho’s family. The girl is very rude. She treats Lokho very badly; making fun of her for not having a boyfriend (Lokho’s only 15), accusing Lokho of stealing, taking Lokho’s things, and just being an all around witch with a capital B. Lokho doesn’t want to complain to her Aunt because she knows her Aunt is a good person and will kick this girl out of the house. But Lokho got fed up today because the girl has been insulting one of Lokho’s very good friends: me. She was apparently telling people “that mzungu said she was cleaning her house, but its such a mess, she must not know how!” Now, anyone who’s ever lived with me knows that I can be pretty messy. But here in Kenya, I keep the clutter to a minimum, and only leave my kitchen as a disaster, everything else is not bad. Lokho agreed my house was not bad, and wanted to let me know what was being said about me. Lokho also said that every time this girl comes over to my house, it is just to get the free American food I dish out. She must a little slow if she thinks that I wouldn’t catch on to that, and so lately she has been complaining because I never give her food. I don’t like cooking for people, mostly because I cannot afford it and if I start doing it for one, I have to do it for many. And also, no Kenyans like my cooking. The only person who has liked my food has been Lokho, and I only feed her because she is always at my house, is such a sweetheart, and I love her. She told me this adorable story about Galgallo, her three yr old nephew. The family has a few chickens and they collect the eggs once a day. Yesterday, Galgallo picked up the eggs and, in his three year old brain, thought they were bouncy balls. He lifted the eggs up high and smashed them with enthusiasm on the floor. Everyone in the family laughed but Galgallo was so upset that he hid under the couch. And adorableness ensued.

On Friday morning, my form two girls pampered me. They are always trying to take care of me, making sure my skirt is on straight and my shoes are brushed. This morning the weather was drizzly and cold, I absolutely loved it, but it got me to school muddy up to the knees and with wet, frizzy hair in a messy braid. I did a decent physics review for the lesson and then I sat and chatted with them. They think I am a slob and don’t understand how I get so dirty. Two of the girls took my shoes and cleaned them, then they washed my feet very thoroughly. I got lotion and a foot massage, while other girls brushed my hair. They braided it, gave me a cool zigzag part and applied oil (it is not good for white people hair but they would not be deterred) . They even tried to put eyeliner on me but I wouldn’t let them because I was afraid of pink eye. They also told me exactly what to wear tomorrow during parents day. They asked me to come by tomorrow morning so they can dress me like a Barbie but I don’t think I am going to let them. I don’t like the amount of grease in my hair I’ll probably never get it to wash out. Also on Friday, the cow that lives at school became meat. I wanted to watch them ‘chinja’ her, but in the end, I couldn’t. I blame the American students from Minnesota; they named her! Everyone knows you should never name animals destined for food. I just couldn’t watch Martha die, and when I saw what they were doing to the body immediately after, I was unable to watch that as well.

Saturday was Parents’ Day. It is a day that traditionally was planned to let the parents of students come to the school to visit their kids and talk to teachers to see what their kids are up to. But all the schools in my area use this as an opportunity to celebrate and out-do each other. Dakabaricha Day School had two goats slaughtered for their Parents’ Day, but we had two goats and a cow. St. Pauls had their boys sing traditional Borana and Samburu songs, our girls dressed up in traditional outfits to perform their songs. We had a Board of Govenor come to ours, but St. Paul had him, plus the Bishop. Each school has a Parents’ Day and all the villages around know about them through rumor and come to all of them to see who has the best entertainment and food. It is a lot of fun for everyone, but a lot of work for the teachers and students. Friday, my students spent hours outside in the sun fetching stones to make a ‘driveway’ in the dirt. Then they spent hours whitewashing them with an ash/water mix. My jobs for Parents’ Day were to make professional looking certificates on the computer in town, help shop for presents for best performing students, wrap all the presents, make badges for all the important guests with ribbon and cardboard, and make meal cards so only parents of students could get food. I did all that work on Friday so I would be free to do other stuff on Saturday. Every teacher was assigned a job based on whether or not you were a man. If you were a man, you did work like: slaughtering goats, using a machete to chop limbs off dead goat carcasses that hung from trees, cutting heads off goat carcasses to use for ‘goat-head soup’, etc. The female teacher, Madame Ruth, was in charge of food. She was the General loudly yelling orders to her army of student helpers, and me. It was very annoying, though she is good at her job, I just cannot stand being told what to do. Especially when she acts as if I was only born with half a brain. “Did you wipe the dust off the water bottles? Do that. Use water… NOT TOO MUCH! No, wipe this direction, Ryan we should put them on tables like this…. Because we want everyone to have water… you know? No one chooses water, everyone gets one… so put them here… No, like this….” Etc, etc. And she would have these conversations as if I was contradicting her. I felt like she was dying to say “Because I said so!” but I never gave her the opportunity. She eventually put me in charge of my own little student army and gave me the important task of serving all the people wearing “distinguished guest” badges. She kept coming back to check on me, but eventually figured I could handle it. But man, that was tough to do. I served the men food, got them drinks, and then when they got up and walked away, I swept up the mess they left, took their plates to be washed, threw away their dirty napkins, returned their empty soda bottles. I felt degraded, and maybe I shouldn’t, after all, someone had to serve. But it was hard, I had been running around helping cook and prepare the meal and I was hot, sweaty, dirty, hungry, and tired and I had to stand there watching them eat and relax. I tried to go stand outside with my student army sneaking them drinks of water which they weren’t supposed to be having, but Madame Ruth caught me and told me to go back inside and supervise. She wanted me in the room ready to whisk away empty plates and right table cloths. In the end, it wasn’t so bad. Everyone from the village and all the important people in the area saw me working and complimented me on the meal I made (even though all I did was chop onions), how hard I worked, how welcomed they felt, etc. I felt like they didn’t really expect me to be working so hard, but since I was absolutely filthy and sweaty, they were pretty impressed that I did it. Everyone kept asking me if I was tired and encouraging me to go home, or take a break, but I just gave them a big smile and said I was fine. The worst part of the day was that I wore a white shirt and my pretty gold ballet flats. In 5 minutes, the shirt was seriously brown, and after ten minutes, my feet were actually bleeding from the shoes. I was limping around and wincing which is probably why I kept getting told to sit down. After an hour, I was nearly crying with the pain, but after two hours, all the blisters were rubbed off and I refused to limp anymore, cause I looked ridiculous, and eventually I stopped really feeling the pain.

The food was delicious, as all (okay, most) Kenyan food is. I love kachumbari which is sliced raw tomatoes and onions. I am not supposed to eat raw tomatoes, they cause fun giardia-type diseases, but I just love them too much. There was also matumbo which is every single innard chopped up and boiled, lungs, stomach, heart, kidney, intestine, everything. I have had it before, but didn’t really like it, for obvious reasons (it tastes like boiled lung), but I thought that my tastebuds have all gone on strike and rarely give a shit about what I eat now so I thought I would try it again. Nope, still tastes like boiled lung. I can eat some things like the liver and kidneys, but the large intestine just tastes exactly like a large intestine. The whole time I am eating it, I am thinking “hmm, I can nearly taste the grass this cow ate.” I can’t get it out of my head that I am eating the part of the body that makes poop. And if you think you can just hurry up and chew and swallow, nope. Nature wants you to savor the taste, so the texture is like trying to chew a balloon. You just roll that intestine around in your mouth for awhile and debate whether you’ll be able to swallow it whole or will you choke and die on a large hunk of the part of the cow that makes poop.

During the day, I had a long conversation with some people about the funeral I saw the other day. In the Borana culture, when a person dies, the women are not allowed to be anywhere near the grave. Only the men are allowed to bury the family member, even if the deceased was a woman, no females are allowed at the burial. As soon as the person dies, the family has to bury them before the day is over. They bury them in shallow graves, as I saw, and pile rocks over the top. The person I talked to didn’t know why they put them so close to their houses, but she did say that while there are no crosses allowed, the families put little things to remember the person by, for example, a nice pair of shoes for a young woman. It really disturbed me because I thought that little kids had been playing on the graves, and now I know why there is a tiny pair of sneakers on more than one of the rock piles that I pass on the way to school.

After the burial, everyone in that family has to stay in the house for three days. They are not allowed to bathe, change clothes, cook, fetch water, or leave for any reason. They are dependent on neighbors to come help them do everything. After three days, the family is allowed to leave the house, but if possible, they don’t go to school or work for 47 or 50 days. Again, the woman I talked with didn’t know how they decided on such a specific amount of time but the reason was because in their culture, after 50 days, the head of the person had separated from the body and the death or decomposition of the person was over. After this time, the family has a big celebration where a cow has to be slaughtered to celebrate the end of the official mourning period. Then the family is allowed to go back to their lives.
It was really a very interesting conversation. And Parents’ Day turned out to not be so bad. I think I would rather slave in the hot tin kitchen under the African sun while my shoes destroy my feet and serve all those men than sit through the hours and hours of endless speeches all the guests had to go through.
I’ll end there for today and I hope you all have a good week.

What the French, Toast!? You won’t believe this! A baby mouse just ran into my kitchen. Literally, less than six hours after I dispose of my erstwhile enemy his spawn return to torture me... Unbelievable. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Speaking of Things that are Sharp....

I only have a few minutes to write before I have to go to school. It is a little after six, I have been lazy lately and not getting up at 5 like I should. I wake up at five and then hang around reading in bed hoping to wake myself up enough to stumble out of bed. It never works and I am trying to find new ways to convince my body that 7 hours is plenty of sleep. I have always been an eight hours of sleep type person and my body absolutely hates me for cutting back to 5 or 6 hrs. But today, I got up despite the I-don’t-care-how-much-i-have-to-do-I-am-not-moving exhaustion. I made coffee- this morning I put cocoa powder in it to make a mocha (I miss my Dunkin Donuts Lattes) and I thought I would write a bit while it cooled.
For breakfast this morning I am going to treat myself to yogurt. The yogurt, like everything here, does not need to be refrigerated. I am not sure how long it can go without refrigeration so I am doing a test. What I do is: leave it out for a day, eat it. If I get no gastronomic fireworks, I try leaving it for two days. So far I have extended the unrefrigerated shelf life of orange juice, eggs, cheese, and leftovers to longer than is palatable. I won’t tell you how long, just in case Peace Corps medical is reading this. And I want to avoid a chastising phone call from my mother as well. Did you know an opened pack of velveeta will last well over a month despite it saying “refrigerate after opening and use after five days”? My mother would be horrified that I am doing this. But trust me, mild dysentery is worth it if I am able to eat yogurt for breakfast instead of Blue Band and white bread.

The reason I decided to write this morning was to complain. (I love complaining.) My foot hurts. (wimper) Yesterday while carrying water, I stepped on an acacia thorn in my good Teva flip flops. The three inch thorn went all the way though the shoe and into the soft part of my foot. And [insert swear word here] it hurt! I tried to pull the thorn out of the shoe and succeeded in breaking it off making the shoe unwearable. And this morning, judging from the pain, I have the other half of the thorn in my foot. Awesome. I tried to pry it out of my foot, but it is buried. The walk to school is going to be very long and now I am down to one decent pair of shoes- my hiking sneakers. Someone asked me for wish list of things I need/want, new tevas are at the top of the list. Those tevas were pretty enough to wear to class and comfortable enough to hike in.

Speaking of things that are sharp, the night watchman over at the Brothers’ compound killed a porcupine yesterday. In America, porcupines are very spikey and look painful. Here, I guarantee that an encounter with a porcupine would kill you. The American students picked off some of the quills and gave them to me and Wow, they’re big. The quill I have is 10 inches long, thick as a pen, and needle sharp. It is strong and hollow, looks perfect for performing emergency tracheotomies.
I spent a lot of time with the wazungus from Minnesota over the weekend. The teachers are pretty awesome people and I spent a few hours just chatting with them. Having them here has brought to light just how much I have changed. I don’t know when it happened, but I have now become more Kenyan than American. Everything from my language to my behavior is Kenyan. We were having a conversation, I was trying to convince them to just stop by my house for a visit (this is something we don’t do in America, you would never just show up to someone’s house uninvited), and they were saying it would get dark before they left. I offered them my torch to use and then I trailed off, noticing them all giving me a strange half smile. I paused, “what?” With a grin, one of them said, “You said torch!” Yeah, I say torch instead of flashlight, serviette instead of napkin, carbon four oxide instead of carbon dioxide, and call plastic bags “paper bags”. Go ahead and make fun. One of the students asked me why I wasn’t afraid to walk outside at night, why didn’t the hyenas attack me. I was thinking about it when a Kenyan friend of mine said, “They don’t attack her because she is Kenyan”. I guess hyenas only eat foreigners.
There is a cow who lives on my school compound. She is very cute, like most cows, and very nosey. She always tries to come in the staff room during lunch and someone has to run over and kick her in the face to get her to leave. I know that sounds harsh, she’s not hurt by it though, its more of a push in the face with a foot. But I don’t do that. I make moo-ing noises trying to get her to come inside. She is a very hungry cow but, like everywhere here, there is nothing to eat and no water to drink. She spends a lot of her day standing with her head in the staff room moo-ing as loud as she can. It actually gets quite annoying. But I still love her. But I really need to stop getting attached to animals here. There is a reason that the word for ‘animal’ is the same as the word for ‘meat’. I found out today that the end of her life is coming. She, and two goats, are destined to be lunch on Saturday during parents day. Me, being one of two females on the staff, will have the job of, lets use a nice word, processing the meat. In America, it is rare if you get to see the animal you are eating. Our culture tries its best to separate Happy Cows from Tasty Steak. Here there is no hiding it. Friday evening, I will see exactly where hamburgers come from. You might think that having that visual in your mind is a good way to become a vegetarian. But it actually helps me. I like knowing that this cow was treated well, as well as any of the starving creatures here can be, and it will be dispatched in a quick, humane way. You can never be sure of that with meat in America. Notice how I used “it” not “she”, I figure now is as good a time as any to distance myself. I am already getting morose just thinking about it. I’m such a softie sometimes. If I cry when I watch the cow die, all my teachers will laugh at me. I must be strong.

While I was walking home on Monday, a young boy asked me where my husband was. I said I didn’t have one and he asked why. I told him I was too busy for a husband and I didn’t need one. Besides, I said I was too young for one anyway. He asked how old I was, 25 I told him. He said “my mother is 24”, in a way that I am sure meant “yes, you are going to die a spinster.” I asked how old he was. “11”. Eleven! With marriage on his mind and a 24 year old mom! Yeah, do the math on that one. I was pretty speechless.

Besides the burden of being harassed by children about my marital status, I was still in a very good mood on the way to school on Tuesday. I had gotten up on time, made coffee, written my physics midterm exam, and had even done a load of wash (though I only used one bucket, and didn’t really scrub or rinse :/ ). I was walking alone with a skip in my step, enjoying the unusually cool weather, when I passed through Kubibagasa village. I was expecting to walk through the gauntlet of friendly toddlers (really quite adorable) but the place was empty. No one was at the bore hole either. I walked a little further, and when I saw why, my mood just plummeted. A woman had died at one of the houses I pass every day. There was a large crowd of people in the yard. The women were comforting the family members who were distraught . I saw one woman on the ground, retching, while her companions held her up. Nearer the house, a lady was hysterically weeping, and then overcome with grief, she started yelling and hyperventilating. She was helped inside. While the women took care of the mourners, the men were taking care of the deceased. I had always wondered what they do with their dead here; there is no cemetery out here. I got my answer as I watched the men digging in the field to the side of the house. They buried the woman in a shallow grave, only 10 feet from the road, and piled it with rocks. I have seen these rock piles all around here, and I never knew what they were. It is strange that they bury their loved ones right along roads or in their housing compounds. I am wondering if it has to do with protection from animals, for remembrance, or some other reason. There are no headstones or markers, just these sad piles of rocks throughout the desert. I asked how the woman died and was told that she was just old. I suspect it was more to do with malnutrition. I have heard that once the elderly lose their teeth, which happens very early in life with no toothbrushes or dentists, they have to live on camel’s milk alone. With the drought, many camels are not producing much milk. It was very sad to see but such a common part of life here. By the time I walked by the hut on my way home, the mourners were gone, the bore hole was busy, there was clean laundry hanging to dry, the children were waiting for me, and the fresh pile of rocks was the only visual reminder that anything had occurred.

Mama Said There'll Be Days Like This

I am having a rough week. On my way to school Wednesday, my bicycle broke. I was riding downhill when I heard a loud SNAP and knew I was in trouble. I know what you are thinking, “Ryan, you already told us this story”. Unfortunately, and frustratingly, I am not repeating myself. My bicycle broke AGAIN. For the third time in two weeks. I spend most of my time pushing the damn thing to and from school. It is really starting to annoy me. I fixed the brakes last week, rode the thing for a day before the chain stopped engaging the gears. I left the bike at school over the weekend where it miraculously fixed itself. Rode it to school Monday and on Wednesday the new brakes snapped off. Grrr. I am running out of ways to fix it. I suppose that’s what I get for off-roading with a bike that is old enough to be in high school.

Also, I think something is seriously wrong with my feet because I keep falling. I don’t mean that I trip a lot, though I do stumble four or five times a day. I mean that in the last week I have sprawled on my face not once, not twice, but an unbelievable three times. All three have been in front of an embarrassing number of people. I don’t trip and land on my knees, I don’t catch myself with my hands in a downward dog yoga position. Nope, I just lose my balance for no reason and fall, hitting the ground with every part of my body. The first time was Monday at school. I slipped on some loose dirt outside the staff room and landed flat on my back. It was like a cartoon character with a banana peel. The second fall was Monday afternoon. I was pushing my bike home and got to the top of this hill. I was at a complete standstill and attempted to swing my right leg over the bike and mount. It is a move I have only done about a million times in my life. I got my leg over and then I just fell. My left leg just gave out. I landed hard with the bike on top of me. The group of Borana women loaded with water on their backs ran to help me. They insisted that I do not ride anymore and made me walk the bike the rest of the way. The third fall was by far the most embarrassing and funny. I was in the center of town on Tuesday for District education day. I was walking in a straight line, not distracted in any way, when I just tripped over absolutely nothing and collapsed in a heap. I got all dirty, tangled in my skirt, and even lost a shoe. I fell in the doorway of a shop. All my students saw, all my teachers saw, half the town saw. And those who didn’t see will probably have heard about it by now. I picked myself up from the dirt repeating “Niko sawa! Niko sawa!” (“I am okay!”) and giggling like a lunatic. I thought about calling the PC medical personnel and asking for help but I couldn’t think of what to say. “Hi, this is Ryan, I am calling because I am slowly losing my mental faculties and have lost the ability to stand…” I don’t know what is wrong with me. I am not losing my balance, I don’t get vertigo or anything; it’s like I was born with three legs and recently got one removed and now have to re-learn how to walk. It is very awkward.
I do not know how to cleverly segue from my personal difficulties to issues that are actually important so I am going to use this sentence to do it for me.
I recently met a teacher from the primary school while walking home. He was asking all about America and telling me about his life. He was an IDP, an Internally Displaced Person. He used to live in the Chalabi desert with his family but during a crisis in 2005, he and his whole community was moved here to Diribgombo. The fifty families were given only a white plastic dome hut to live in. The move was supposed to be temporary but the IDPs, which are all over the country, are afraid that the government has forgotten about them. There are no plans to move them back home, they have no money, no jobs, and no land. The man I met said that most just sit around all day but he felt that “idle hands are the devil’s playground” and so he is a volunteer teacher at the primary school. He teaches a few classes a day for a very reduced pay, just enough to buy a little food for his family. He is a very nice man; you would expect someone who has had their life uprooted to be angry or bitter, but he was friendly and kind. Again, I wished I had something to offer for help but all he asked of me was to walk with him to school sometimes and talk to him about America.

I have been thinking about this man for a few days now, and I was surprised that I had had no idea there were IDPs living so close to me. I can see their small white huts from my house and never knew what they were. I felt bad when I realized how little I knew about my community. I googled my village and found out some data about it. The international poverty rate is $1 USD per day. Kenya as a whole has 50% of its population below that rate. Kenya also has its own “extreme poverty rate” which is $0.50 USD per day and in my village, Diribgombo, over 80% of people live below that line. To give you a comparison, the American poverty rate is $60 per day and 17% of Americans are below that. It really puts things in perspective for me. And yet, Kenyans are the most generous people I have ever met. Some ask for money when they first meet me, but once they know me, they will give me anything. I have gotten food, money, and help, without asking, from Kenyans who don’t even understand my language and all they want in return is to shake my hand or give me a hug. Yesterday, I was sitting on a rock reading a book when a little girl from the village came up and sat next to me. After she shyly said hello she gave me a piece of candy then ran away. At education day, I was sitting under a tree by myself trying not to get sunburned when one of my favorite students, Robe, came over and brought me two packages of ginger cookies and a soda. She thought I looked hungry. And my young neighbor, Lokho, came over last night and she said “I will remember you for my whole life because you are like my mother”, and then she gave me a small hair clip with a flower on it that she had purchased with her own money and a letter telling me how much she loves having me as a friend. You just can’t imagine how sad and grateful and lucky I feel to be living here and seeing all this.

PS. I am spending a lot of time with the group from Minnesota, and I just love them. They gave me a bag of granola bars and candy and also gave me a coloring book and real Crayola markers. When they saw how unimaginably happy the gifts made me, they laughed in a “wow, poor thing” kind of way. That’s okay, they are also going to give me an old hat, some new (to me) flip flops that are only one size too big, and any Ziploc bags they have left over. It’s like Christmas! I know, I know… I’m pathetic.

I think I’ll stop there and end this blog on a high note. I will save for next time the story about the disappearing scorpion and the camel that tried to kick me in the head.

Ah, the Good Life

This has been an amazing weekend. I had had a mildly stressful week. Everything just ganged up on me and tried to drag me down; the bicycle breaking repeatedly, the last time hopefully for good so I can have an excuse to get a new one, the desert getting even hotter than normal which is totally not fair, having guests and a new neighbor coming over to my house twice a day all week thereby destroying any semblance of privacy I used to pretend I had, and one of my fellow volunteers ET-ing (going home) making me sad and just a teensy bit jealous. I also talked to my sisters for the first time in almost a month and I realized just how much I miss them. Darn them for being so supportive, funny, sweet, and amazing! So anyway, I was tired of constant attention so I decided to take a tip from a friend and go to town to check myself into a hotel. I wanted to pamper myself with clean sheets, hot showers, no cooking, no dishes, no neighbors, no desert, and no worries. I came to town on Saturday morning as usual and instead of scrambling to get shopping done and checking email so I would have a few minutes to chug a cold beer before having to go home, I leisurely called Curtis, my fellow PCV who lives in town, and made him stop doing laundry and come take me to The Crater. I had heard about the crater, and seen it from the air but had never hiked up there. The road to get there is long, five kilometers long, and awfully annoying; all along it there are kids who yell “HOW ARE YOU!” as loud as they can in a horrible, high-pitched voice designed to poke a hole through every neuron in a mzungu brain. They start yelling a few seconds before they actually can see you, the echo of the previous group of screaming kids having served as an advanced warning system, and do not cease until you are nearly weeping from the effort to restrain yourself from responding with a stream of words that would be full of asterisks. The road leads out of town, past the airstrip, down a dusty road where the green hills start, and finally leaves the kids behind when you come to the bright blue slaughterhouse. You know for sure that it is a slaughter house because of the hundred or so macabre-looking vultures waiting outside and the smell which is like that of a normal farm mixed with what I can only assume is the smell of innards. Then there is more walking down dusty roads until you get out into the desert. The land starts to drop off and become full of ravines and hills where herds of camels are scattered. We passed the rock quarry on the edge of the open desert. The men working there were chipping out large squares of stone using mallets and chisels in the heat of the desert sun. After we passed them, it was only a matter of some minor rock climbing to get to the top of a ridge. But when I stumbled over that last boulder and was hit by that first gust of wind and glanced down with my stomach dropping, the only thought in my head was “wow”. It was a big crater. A really, really big crater. I am terrible at judging distance but this thing must be miles across. I looked down past the sheer cliffs and saw tiny bushes which turned out to be large trees and a herd of cows that were so small I couldn’t tell they were cows. It was like looking out of an airplane window; everything was so tiny and far away that you could have said they were mice or double decker buses and I would have agreed with you. We stood on the edge of this crater, trying to not get blown in, for a few minutes. It was the kind of place you could sit for hours if you had a picnic, a good book, and an ipod. I had none of those things so after ten minutes of staring at the majesty in front of me and throwing some rocks to see how long they took to get to the bottom, I decided it was time for a cold beer. Unfortunately, we had to walk another 5 km through the irritating child gauntlet to get to the bar.
I spent Saturday night in my hotel room watching movies, listening to some drunk guy vomit loudly in the hallway, and eating what passes for junk food here in Mars. I had Digestive Tasty Wheat Biscuits (High in Fibre!), a can of fruit cocktail, and blackcurrant yogurt. The last two items were imports from someplace amazing and provided at a steep price by my friends at the Indian store. I fell asleep on the pillow, that I am pretty sure was made out of wood, slightly nauseous and happy.
I woke up Sunday leisurely at six AM. I was going to have banana pancakes with honey for breakfast (I was going to have to make them, but that’s okay) but it was Sunday and all the stores were closed for church. I settled for a cup of strong black coffee and then Curtis and I went off on an adventure to find elephants. We called our usual taxi driver and had him come pick us up and take us to Marsabit Forest. The last time we went we stopped at The Lodge which overlooks a crater. We saw only baboons. So this time we were going all the way to Lake Paradise. We started driving through the park and 2km in we passed the overlook to the crater near the lodge. Lo and Behold! ELEPHANTS! There was a whole herd, 5 dusty brown adults and two beautiful calves. After gazing lovingly at them as they swished their tails and flapped their ears, we went on. We traveled deep into the forest startling large, reddish brown deer-things, and seeing lots of baboons. We traveled up onto a ledge overlooking Lake Paradise, now only a green clearing thanks to the drought. Despite there not being water in the lake, there was a lone zebra grazing. It was too far away to tell if it was actually a zebra, or just an escaped donkey. So we got back in our car and drove down onto the green patch. When we got there, our zebra (or donkey) was gone, but on the other side of the clearing was a whole herd of actual zebras! There were even a few babies, very very adorable babies. We watched them for awhile then continued back up through the forest. We were driving along when all of a sudden we spotted elephants. They were walking along the road not even ten feet from us. By the time our driver reacted and stopped the car, I was halfway out my window trying to remember how to use my camera as I mumbled ‘wow’ over and over. The elephants were as startled to see us and paused in the forest. Then Dad, with huge curving tusks, jumped out to defend his family. He came out of the forest with his ears spread wide. Anyone who watches the Discovery channel knows that is a precursor to charging. Me, being incapable of recognizing danger, climbed further out my window. Fortunately, our driver realized what a full grown, angry bull elephant could do to a taxi. He calmly said, “he’s coming towards us. That’s not good” and he hit the gas. As soon as the elephant saw us retreating, he and the rest of his family thundered across the road back into the forest. It was absolutely amazing.
We arrived at the Lodge and decided to stay there and relax and watch the grazing elephant herd for the afternoon. Curtis and I ate PB & J sandwiches and gazed at the elephants as they wandered in and out of the forest. It was a cool, almost chilly, breezy afternoon. I napped, read a book, listened to the elephants occasionally trumpeting, and stayed wrapped up in a shawl for hours. Eventually, we had to leave and we called the taxi to come pick us up. We drove away feeling extremely satisfied with our day, when all of a sudden ELEPHANT!! This one was the biggest one I have ever seen in my life, and he wasn’t in a zoo, or behind a fence, or far away in a crater. He was gigantic and only three elephant steps away from our car. I was so excited I nearly peed myself. Again, I attempted to climb out the window, at the same time checking with our driver that I wouldn’t be killed. He assured us that the big guy was alone, and therefore had to one to protect. That was good because if this guy wanted to attack, there is no way we could escape, he would be standing on the hood of the car before our driver touched the gas pedal. But he didn’t want to attack. He stayed right where he was and browsed, turning his head to us to make sure we weren’t doing anything dumb, like climbing out car windows. His tusks were unbelievably long and old looking. His wrinkly eye watched us, and his ears gently flapped. He was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. After a few minutes, he got bored with our staring and moved off, breaking down trees as he ambled away through the forest. It was an amazing end to an amazing day.
After that wonderful weekend, I was ready to go back to school. It was guaranteed to be an extremely exciting time. I heard there were mzungus coming from a school in Minnasota to spend three weeks learning about Marsabit. They were staying at St. Pauls and they were only there for one day before I couldn’t wait anymore and went to visit. My Kenyan friend, Leah, was excited for me; she said, “You are here alone. Seeing an American must be like seeing your own brother,” and she was right. I wanted to run to them and give them a big hug while gushing about how happy I was to see them. I forgot, of course, that they are used to seeing Americans, and they are living with Americans while here, and they just came from America so who cares. And while I have been away for a while, I am pretty sure it is still weird to hug strangers in America. I didn’t care though. I went to their house in the morning and greeted them. They were very nice, though much less enthused to see me, and told me I could come over any time. I warned them that I would take them up on that (I saw a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce on their kitchen counter!). They said they had brought American treats with them and would give me some. The orgasmic look on my face must have shown how much I would love that. I left them, too soon for my tastes, but I could see them losing interest. It was alright though, they are here for three whole weeks and I am going visit them nearly everyday. Maybe I’ll even get to use sarcasm!
Parents day for St. Pauls is this weekend and I am invited. Brother Boniface first said “you are not a guest,” and I was surprised but said okay. He then said , “you are one of us, you have to be there”. Aww! I wouldn’t miss it. Besides the mzungus, Leah, the Brothers (who become more like family every time I see them), I hear there is going to be local tribal dances and entertainment. It sounds like an awesome party. I will certainly tell you all about it next week. Have a good day!

Back in the Swing of Things

It is Wednesday, halfway through the week, halfway through the month of May. I cannot believe how time is flying. I am kinda happy about this. When I first got back from Nairobi, I was cranky for about two weeks. I was tired, overworked, stressed, and missing the nearly America life that I had while on vacation. I was frustrated with the lack of cell service, it is so hard to get used to not speaking with any friends or family, and the awful sexism I experience was, all of a sudden, intolerable. It took me a day off to recover mentally, and a few days of pampering myself, to be back to normal. And by pampering, I mean I let myself not do dishes, not do laundry, not cook. After the few days I, and my house, were filthy. But, I made it through the rough patch, and hopefully, but not likely, it was one of the last. This week I feel much better.

At school, things are going very well. My Peace Corps training has kicked in and I really feel like I know what I am doing. Looking back on last term I have to admit that I sucked as a teacher. I had no clue what I was doing, and I feel very bad for my students. Though they love me, I am sure they did not learn much. But this term, everything is different. I have new respect for every teacher I have ever had. Preparing for lessons is a lot of work! Turns out, you can’t just show up and read out of the book. I am coming up with more activities, more interactive ways of teaching, more homework, more quizzes, etc, etc. I am incredibly busy, and I think my students think I am nuts, but it is already paying off. My form ones are my trouble makers. They are angsty teens and getting them to do anything is painful for all of us. But I made a lot of changes, and they are already getting better. They have less attitude and less resistance (a very little less), though they still have no clue how to work independently. My form twos are my pride and joy. They know for certain that I am nuts and they love me for it. Yesterday, I wanted to do a lab activity, and as per usual, almost no one understood what to do. I took the five girls who did understand and had them be leaders and teach small groups of students. For the first time ever, each group got together quietly and efficiently, they all listened attentively, they all did the work, and every student did the activity. It was the first time, probably in the history of the school, that students were able to work in small groups without the teacher holding their hands. It was amazing. It really gave me hope that, however painful it is, my students are making progress and they will get there eventually.

A few days ago, on the high of my students doing well, I went home to work on my personal project of making paper mache furniture. I finished a three-shelf unit for my kitchen, and am working on a bigger spice rack. So I am sitting on my floor in the early evening, my hands covered in goo, when that darn mouse that makes a rukus all night just walks into the room. He didn’t even care that I was sitting right there! I tried to scare him away but he just ran into my bedroom. A friend of mine recently was bitten by a mouse who climbed into her bed, so I was a little freaked out by him being in my bedroom. When my 12 year old neighbor, Lokho, came over for her nightly English lesson, I complained to her about the mouse. She told me, very seriously, that she would catch it and kill it for me. So we went mouse hunting. We cornered it in the bedroom and would try to scare it from under the bed. When he ran out, we would both squeal like the girls we are and whack the poor thing with my ‘broom’, which is just a bunch of stiff grass tied together. Each time the mouse ran out, we would frantically jump around trying to hit him, and also trying to escape. I ended up on the bed, and Lokho was wedged in the corner, both of us bent over in laughter at our fear. Finally, we tired the mouse out and Lokho caught him in the bristles of the broom. She took him outside, and I asked her not to kill him, just set him free far away. Now my house is pleasantly mouse free. Now I only have cockroaches, scorpions, and ants. I can deal with those. Though I still hate those freakin’ ants.

The reason for my passionate, unwavering hatred of those tiny black ants will become clear when I tell you about last night’s debacle. I was at home, I wanted to work on my paper mache, so I slid to the floor to begin work. I checked to see if there were ants under me, and didn’t see any. Clearly, I didn’t look hard enough because as soon as I sat down I felt a sharp stab on my left buttock. I gasped and quickly leaned to the right to brush off the ant. Then I felt a sharp stab on my right butt cheek. Cursing I jumped up, but it was too late. Those damn tiny black ants! When they bite it feels like a wasp sting; it hurts way more than it should. And the bite burns for hours. The bites make the skin swell up so I had two large distinct bumps on my rear end. It hurt so bad I couldn’t sit down; I had to stand and apply cool cloths to the area for half an hour before I was able to sit without whimpering. Once the burning faded, about 4 hours later, the itching started. It is about 8,000 times as itchy as a mosquito bite. It wakes me up from a dead sleep and keeps me awake. Anti-itch cream only dulls the itch. And the best part is that the itch lasts for days. Like 5 days. So now I have a massively itchy rear that I nearly cannot keep from scratching, even in class. Its awful.

That was my night last night, so I woke up this morning feeling overtired. But I dragged myself out of bed and made coffee. Thank you, Julie, for your care package full of instant coffee and vanilla powdered creamer. After my caffeine fix, I headed to school. I was pleasantly coasting along on my bike when I saw the big hill up ahead. It is a very large hill; going top speed on my bicycle it takes a good while to get to the bottom. I was halfway down, there are lots of loose rocks and they make me nervous, so I started to apply the brakes. I slowed a teensy bit and then, SNAP, and my brakes broke off. Just broke right off. I heard them hit the dirt behind me and I had the thought, “well, that’s just wonderful” followed by a few seconds of “well, now what?” There really is only one solution I could think of, and crashing at top speed into the rocks at the bottom of the hill was not it. So I grabbed both the front and the back brakes and squeezed as hard as I could. Since there was only metal contacting the bike wheels it made a horrible screeching noise, and I like to imagine sparks flying. I only slowed a little and had to apply my heels to the dirt. I did eventually stop in a large dramatic cloud of dust. Fortunately, no one was around to laugh at me. I had to walk the rest of the way to school, riding the bike only when the ground was flat, which was never. I ended up being late to school. I ran in to my first class winded, dirty, sweaty, and unprepared. My students paid the price though, I didn’t have time to do the lesson I had prepared, so I gave them a pop quiz.

I am still in a good mood though, despite my itchy rear end and my 13 year old, no brakes, janky chained, perpetually flat tired bicycle. I think the reason is because I’ve decided that tomorrow I am inviting myself over to the Brothers of St. Paul’s house for dinner; Thursday is pizza night! They are great guys and will have cold beer, American TV, pizza, and sarcasm. I would go over every night if I didn’t feel so imposing. They tell me its okay, but its just so odd. My American upbringing tells me it is not okay to just show up at someone’s front door without notice and expect to be fed.

Last weekend the Brothers had a party, and as usual, it was great. I danced to my favorite Kenyan songs with Leah, my beautiful Kenyan friend, while the men danced terribly around us. Some of the guys showed me their dances, which made me laugh myself nearly to incontinence. None of their dances had names, so I made them up in my head. There was the ‘duck shuffle’ where you put your elbows out like wings and flap them while bobbing your head and shuffling your feet side to side. There was the ‘fainting lady’ in which you put the back of your hand on your forehead while looking dramatically at the ceiling and sway your hips downwards. I saw the ‘man with limp’ which is similar to the ‘duck shuffle’ but you have arms outstretched and lean to the side so you end up shuffling yourself in a small circle. The ‘compact boogie’ looks like you are trying to be invisible at a high school dance; you put your arms tight to your side, scrunch your shoulders, bend your knees, and groove. And lastly, the ‘butt-kick running man’ that involves drastic, seizure like movements of the body that make you appear to be running in place while kicking your heels up high enough to kick yourself in the rear. I tried all of the dances and succeeded at all but the ‘butt-kick running man’ when I was finally laughing too hard to coordinate a full body seizure and kept falling over. My friend who was teaching me said that now I was prepared to dance to any genre of music in the world. I really, vehemently disagree.

For food, there was nyama choma, grilled goat meat, which was delicious as always. I commented before eating that I was starving and one man said “you do not look like you are starving” while staring pointedly at my Kenya pudge. Darn blunt Kenyans. I ate a hyena sized portion anyway and then spent the rest of the night trying to hide the food baby growing in my belly.

While eating, a group of us got to talking about local names and I mentioned that I did not have one. So they thought about it and gave me the name Njeri. When I heard it I laughed out loud. I thought it was hilarious that my parents gave me a boy’s name at birth and now, here, I get the name “Jerry”. But they assured me it was a girl’s name and told me the story behind it. There was once a woman who was traveling while she was pregnant and she happened to give birth on the road. She named her daughter ‘Njeri’ which means ‘one who likes to travel far’. The men, my friends, sitting around me decided it was a perfect name for me, and I agree. And if pronounced correctly, with a distinct ‘N’ and a nice roll on the ‘R’, I think it is a beautiful name.

Continuing with my Kiswahili education, someone taught me a new phrase today. “Ninakupenda kama ua la bonda. It means “I love you like a flower in the desert”.

Update: Today is Thursday. Last night the mouse repaid my generosity in saving his life by sneaking back into my house. I spent another evening hunting, though without Lokho’s help I was unsuccessful. My teachers chastised me for letting him live. Now the mouse has to die. If I can catch him.

There and Back Again

There and Back Again
Right now, I am typing this in a hotel in Nairobi. I am fresh from a hot shower, utlilizing the free wifi, and waiting until it is time for the free dinner. At this moment, I do not miss my village at all. If they tried to make me go back right now, I would not be able to do it. Even though I enjoyed my term, and miss my home, physically and emotionally, I feel I need more time to recover. I am free from April 3rd to May 3rd, and I am going to live it up. So far, I have had a wonderful vacation with my PIC (Partner in Crime), Cindy, and now I am here for Peace Corps Training with my 31 other best friends. I have had more than 31 hugs and, like a drug, I can’t go back to the village without at least 31 more.
The first week of my vacation was spent with Cindy on the coast. I was so desperate to escape my village and see the real Kenya that I did not plan my vacation. Cindy and I just decided to meet in Nairobi and fly by the seat of our pants from there. I met her in Nairobi on Saturday; I had been there for a few days, sharing beds with other PCVs to save money. There we met Sarah, who is a volunteer on the coast in a small town called Kilifi. Cindy and I told her of our plan to just take a bus to Mombasa and figure out where to go from there and Sarah generously offered her house to us. It was the best gift she could have given us. We drove to the coast on a large, uncomfortable bus. Cindy and I had seats over the wheel and the ride was similar to driving over train tracks for 7 hours. It was not pleasant.
We got to Kilifi in the evening and took a tuktuk, which is an adorable, three-wheeled vehicle, to Sarah’s house. If this was America you would think her house was pretty run down and had far too many creatures running around for it to be an enjoyable stay. But this is Kenya, and to me, Sarah has a gorgeous 5-star house. She has a running shower, 3 burner stove, huge stocked pantry (with real Heinz ketchup!), two full bookshelves, and bright, tropical colored painted walls. She also has mice, frogs, and 5 inch long centipedes. And her house is about a thousand degrees all day and all night long. She does have a fan, but sweating 24 hrs a day is just unavoidable. Cindy and I were determined to keep our vacation unplanned and so woke up every morning, picked a town on the map, and just went there. The first day we stayed in Kilifi; we went to Sarah’s fresh squeezed juice stand and had avocado shakes. Then we found our way to the beach and swam around in the shallow, urine-warm water. It was too hot to be refreshing but we floated around until we discovered a baby man-o-war jellyfish. We chased him around for awhile before going to find dinner. We went to a bar overlooking the Indian ocean and had cold beer while watching the sun set and the men in dug out canoes paddle out to fish for tuna. While sitting there, watching the monkeys run around, a coconut fell from heaven (or the tree above us) to land at our feet. Cindy had been wishing for one, she had never had fresh coconut, and so it was fate that brought us this outrageously hard to open, yet delicious, snack.
The next day, we woke up and it was hotter than the surface of the sun as usual, and the one thing we wanted to do was to go snorkeling. So we had a phone number of a guy who we thought would have a boat. He answered the phone like a true Kenyan, “Sema? Yeah, I have a boat. How many are you? Two? Meet at 11.” And then he hung up on me. We showed up to the meeting point, the bar on the ocean from the day before, and waited until he called us. His name was Captain Issa and his boat was a run down, pirate-looking dhow complete with chipped and faded paint and a black flag. We were joined on our trip by 6 surly looking Germans who turned out to be chain smokers and big meanie-heads (I am keeping this rated G for my younger readers). I spoke with Captain Issa in kiswahili to determine a good price, and because of our filthy, ragged clothes and fairly good understanding of the language, he knew we were not tourists and said he would “give good price! You are Kenyan, not like Germans, I give you good price. But don’t tell.” He gave us a price of 2500 KSH, which is about 30 USD. We waded through the bath water warm Indian ocean with our bags on our heads (we are true Kenyans, remember) and climbed on this boat. The Germans did not talk to us, introduce themselves, smile, or even speak in English. This is despite Cindy and my attempts at small talk. We even pretended to be normal so as not to scare them off; that’s no easy feat. Captain Issa pulled us aside later to say, “They are sh*t Germans, you ignore them. They are rude, we will have a good time. They are sh*t germans!” Apparently, the German man, with the 8-month old beer baby growing inside him, was angry because he thought this was a private tour for him and his friends. Captain Issa explained to him, in German, that his boat was there to make money.
After sailing around the ocean near the shore for awhile, passing kids swimming and men in their dugout canoes, we sailed to this deserted strip of beach. The sand is white powder and the water is teal blue. There were some overhangs of rock where we sat while the crew prepared lunch. The only people on the beach were some local women tenderizing dead octopus against the rocks. I have no idea why and only had the courage to ask her, “Ningependa kupiga picha, iko sawa?” She let us take a picture, but she didn’t look too pleased about it.
When lunch was ready, we all sat in the sand to eat. The spread was fanatastic. There was lobster, tuna, coconut rice, bananas, mangoes, watermelon, and some sort of spicy, amazing stew. Captain Issa gave us a lesson in how to eat like a Kenyan, with your hands. The rule was you had to smush up a banana with your fingers, grab a handful of coconut rice with the stew and stuff the whole thing in your mouth with a chunk of fish. The Germans didn’t look too pleased and refused to try it that way, they also seemed afraid of the stew with the unknown ingredients, actually running away with their plates like large four year olds. It was some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted in my life. Just amazing. After lunch, we all waded back to our mini pirate ship and sailed out to the reef. We got on our snorkel gear and jumped in. Of the 6 germans, only two got in the water, and they only stayed in for 5 minutes because, and I am just guessing the reason, they were cranky. Cindy and I snorkeled for a couple hours and saw all sorts of cool stuff. It was beautiful. The boat circled us while we swam, and finally dropped the germans off before coming to get us. They took us to the beach entrance of a resort, since we were way too scruffy to go in the front door. We took pictures with the crew, and got a ride back to town. Captain Issa offered his house for showers, offered to be our tour guide, and said we could call him any time. I love that Kenyans are so darn friendly!
The next day, we picked Malindi as the town of the day and the Vasco de Gamo monument and the Gede ruins. The monuement was easy to find, and with our resident cards, cheap to get into. We also got a free private tour guide. He taught us all about the rock formations and the coral reefs, which I knew all about since I studied that in college. But we made it into a quiz, him asking me questions like, “what causes scurvy?” while telling us the history of Vasco De Gamo. It was a lot of fun. We then asked him where else we should go that was touristy. He said, “the falconry” and Cindy and I were hooked. I just couldn’t leave without seeing a falconry!
The falconry was maybe my favorite part of the trip. Again we got a private tour guide. The place was a conservation and rehabilitation center for some of the local endangered or endemic species. They had an Alabara tortoise named Mzee (It means “old person”) who was 118 years old (he is a famous tortoise for befriending a baby hippo. Google it). We got to feed him bananas and give him scratches on his leathery neck. I loved him from the top of his wrinkly head down to his giant feet. If he walked any faster, I would have kidnapped him. The falconry also had vicious baby nile crocodiles, snakes, owls that you could pet, owls that looked like gremlins, and falcons that you could hold on your arm.
After the falconry, we found our way to the gede ruins. The tour guide there cost money, and we, being cheap, decided to skip it and wander around the woods. The whole place looked like a videogame with zombies. There were signs in front of each pile of stone with ominous names like “the mosque of the three pillars” or “the house of the seven baths”. We kept saying ominous ‘last words’ type things like “even the monkeys don’t come here” and “do you think anyone will see if I pee behind this tree?” We found out later that the ruins were from an unknown ancient civilization that vanished thousands of years ago. OOoooOO… ominous.
That day we also found the greatest Italian food in Kenya. Malindi, by the way, is big on Italian. Some of the street signs are even written in Italian (at least I think it is Italian). So we went to this place called “I Love Pizza” and had amazing pasta. I had some seafood dish that tasted like they put a lobster in a blender with some cheese and then poured it over ziti. It was amazing. Best food I’ve ever had (I realized I’ve already said that in this blog, but my tastebuds are very easy to please)
The next day we were running out of towns on the map that were close enough to take a cheap matatu, so we picked the Arabuko Sokoke forest, which was a large green square on the map. We climbed in the matatu, crowded as usual, and took off at breakneck speeds. We were speeding along, we something literally jumped in front of our vehicle. It flew out of the forest on the left and its hooves didn’t even touch the ground before we blasted through it. And I mean, blasted. I looked behind us and only saw a small chunk of something. Cindy and I were in complete shock. The matatu slammed on the brakes and reversed to see what we had hit. The animal was gone, because some local had already dragged it off the road for dinner. Our driver jumped out to claim his catch and then dragged it back to the matatu. Cindy and I sat with our jaws in our laps and our stomachs in our throats and the men just tossed the dead deer in the back of the matatu, with no tarp under it, and no barrier from the smell. The whole matatu was cheering, “NYAMA!!” (meat!) and we continued on our way, slowing the vehicle occasionally to yell the good news to other matatus. Cindy and I took the rest of the trip in silence, trying not to vomit.
We got to the Arabuko Sokoke forest and met an American couple at the entrance. They were the nicest people ever! I love Americans! They lived here in Kenya and were just traveling around the area like cindy and I were. The mom treated us like her children. “You didn’t bring water? Here have mine. Do you need more sunscreen? Make sure you girls don’t walk around at night, its not safe. I don’t want to read about you on the news tomorrow.” She reminded me of my mother, in the best way. They were both sarcastic and hilarious, and us four made snide comments to each other during the guided tour, which they generously paid for because we “are not trust fund babies tooling around on daddy’s credit cards.” The husband was a goofball and even climbed halfway up a tree just because we said he couldn’t do it. We saw the endangered golden rumped elephant shrew that only exists in this one forest in Kenya. Or something like that, I wasn’t paying attention being too busy making sarcastic comments behind the guide’s back. Then at the end of the day, Mom and Dad bought us all big, cold sodas, and gave us a ride to Malindi, warning us, again, to be safe. I do not remember their names and we will probably never meet again, but if they are out there, reading this, I just wanted to say, “Thanks. You made my day”.
After another stop at I Love Pizza for pasta, Cindy and I went shopping. There is a tourist market in Malindi that has the most beautiful paintings. The locals just sit in the market all day and paint. There are thousands of paintings in many different shops, and every painting is different. I saw elephants in the river, masaai women dancing, baobab trees in sunset, giraffe silhouettes, and grass huts at twilight. I wanted to buy them all. Cindy and I spent a couple hours chatting with the market women, bargaining and making friends. Cindy is the best person in the world to go bargaining with. She is a hard ass, sarcastic, cheap, and hilarious. She always gets the best price and always leaves the Kenyans laughing. I am a push over so I stood back and let her do the work, just translating the Kiswahili for her (she is a deaf education teacher and learned Kenyan sign language). Her routine is amazing. They say, “I give you good price.” And she gets in their face, puts her hand on her hip, points her finger and says sternly, “I am teaching your children!” Then she raises her voice so it is soft and high pitched, “I teach the deaf ones with their teeny, tiny hands,” batting her fingers, like eyelashes, in their faces. And “Bam!”, price drops by a thousand bob. She also enjoys telling them, “What?! You should rename your shop. You should call it ‘highway robbery’” I got out of there with too many paintings but don’t worry, they were all ‘a good price’.
That was the end of our trip. We did more, but it is not interesting enough to write about. Just laying on the beach, making macaroni and cheese with cut up hotdogs, making colored sand art, and sweating all the freaking time. We headed back to Nairobi on a bus, and my awful luck in traveling continued to follow me on the way. Our bus driver was high on miraa, a chewable leaf that is very popular here. Because of the miraa, the driver was more insane than usual. First, while careening down the road, weaving amongst the traffic, we were attempting to pass another bus too close, and just grazed the side of it at 60 km an hour. It was okay, we only lost a sideview mirror, but it was scary as all heck. Then had we continued on our way when we hit a speed bump, at 60 kph. Kenya has this thing. They, Kenya, have horrible traffic problems and no traffic laws. So their brilliant idea was to put speed bumps on the highways, just for fun, to slow down the traffic. It’s a great idea that usually works, when your driver is sober. When we hit the bump, Cindy and I were crammed in the aisle of the back seat with four other adults and a child. We flew out of our seats and slammed back down, compressing spines and rearranging organs. Or as Cindy put it, “after this ride, I’ll need a map to find my kidneys”. The bus full of groaning Kenyans continued on for a half hour or so before we stopped for a break and to pick up more people. There was no room on the bus…excuse me, there was room, just not in seats. So after some rearranging, Cindy and I were crammed against the window, and more passengers were put on Coke crates in the aisles. Us in the back row were privileged enough to sit next to a guy who might tapika (vomit) at any moment. It adds suspense to the next part of the story. So Cindy and I are in the back, Cindy loudly complaining, “If he tapikas on me, I am not going to be happy! I think everyone in the back row should get a discount! I only have one buttcheek on the seat, I should only pay for half a seat!” We continued speeding down the road, when what a surprise, we hit another speedbump. This time, being crowded near the window, Cindy and I smacked our heads on the ceiling, and our faces on the seat in front. This time, the whole bus was yelling, Cindy loudest of all. If I smacked my face as hard as Cindy did, I would have been crying, but she just continued her disparaging comments, making the entire bus full of injured Kenyans laugh. When we got off a half an hour later, the Kenyans asked us to stay. Cindy said, “No! This thing is a death trap!” and the Kenyans laughed again, then asked us to pray for them. P.S. Mr. Tapika never tossed his cookies.
I started writing this on my first night in Nairobi. Then my friends started coming in and I was too distracted to touch my computer until now, two weeks later. Now I am back in Kubibagasa, sitting in my staffroom, listenting to the kiborana swirling around and getting frustrated already. Why won’t they speak English?! *sigh*
Anyway, I am back home and thinking fondly of my time in Nairobi. I drank a lot, ate a lot, talked a lot, and remembered my sarcasm. I ate American, Italian, Ethiopian, Lebanese, Thai, Japanese, and Chinese. I got to know my fellow PCVs better, and had a great time. There was a lot of hugs, tons of laughing, a few sleepovers, some sing alongs, a little dancing, and not much sleep. It is strange how close I am to these people despite not knowing them for very long. At one point during the week we went on a field trip to the International School of Kenya and met 6 RPCVs who worked there. They had all been volunteers a long time ago, and they mentioned that they still talked to so-and-so from their group, ended up godparents to so-and-so’s kids, was maid of honor at so-and-so’s wedding, etc. Their Peace Corps friends are their friends for life. And that is exactly how I feel. I cannot imagine leaving here and never seeing these people again. On those hard days when it would be so easy to go home to America, I remember that I have this great support system helping me and the thought keeps me here. Don't worry, America friends, I still love you and miss you every day. Only 20 more months and I’ll be home.

So, yes, I am here in Mars. The homecoming was nice. So many people came up to give me hugs, kisses, or handshakes. People I didn’t know in town greeted my extremely enthusiastically. My adorable neighbor kids took one look at me and then ran in my house. When I left, they only spoke kiborana, they are only about 3 years old, and so when they ran to me with hugs and said “how are you?” I was shocked. It was so adorable and, for the first time, I did not hate hearing that phrase. Little Abusu showed me that she remembered the things I taught her, to cover her mouth when she coughed and to blow kisses when you say goodbye. Galgallo cuddled up next to me on the couch and sang the days of the week in English. The next day, on the way to school, I passed the borehole and saw the little toddler who can barely walk and cries hysterically when I wave to her. She cried out when she saw me. When I turned to look, she took two steps towards me and waved, no trace of tears. The Borana woman who I greet everyday, grabbed my hand and spoke rapid kiborana while I stood there smiling. She eventually hugged me, laughed at my not understanding, and walked away. I think they thought I was never coming back. It warms my heart to know they are happy I did.

That is all for now. I have been gone for a long time and now I am back. Hopefully soon I will get back into my routine and write more regularly. I know some of you have been missing my updates (okay, maybe just you, Mom). Have a good week!

Leaving My House to the Bugs

I have finished the first term. It seemed so long while I was going through it, but now that it is over, I cannot remember any time passing. I feel like I have been in Kenya for a week, not six months. I know that the first term is supposed to be the hardest, and so I really feel like I can make it through the rest. Right now though, I am not thinking about the next 20 months, I am think about the next 2 weeks. Yesterday, I said goodbye to my house and my village. I realized the last day, that I would actually miss the place. I said goodbye to my students, and the Borana women at the bore hole. I cleaned my house as well as I could to avoid ants. And then yesterday I headed to Nairobi. I am in awe of Nairobi but I can’t stop thinking about my house. I am worried that I left something perishable that will grow into something horrible while I am gone. I am worried that the ants will take over or the place will be filled with scorpions. I don’t want to come home to millions of dead moths, or zillions of spider nests. The bugs in my house have been pretty ridiculous lately and I have not yet complained to you about them. I will take that opportunity now.

Everyone knows Africa has bugs. Lots of bugs, all the time. But no one tells you what kinds will be the ones to drive you insane with annoyance. In my house I have the usual number of bugs for a Kenyan household; I estimate that number to be around 20 billion. And they are all so annoying that I sometimes imagine myself burning down my house just to kill them all. Some of the pests are the type you would think would bother me, or scare me, or gross me out, and they don’t. and then there are the type which are innocent, harmless, and tiny. Those are the ones who will make me go insane. The insanity causing ones are flies and ants. I know what you are thinking, “geezus, Ryan, do the dishes, pick up the food off the floor, and take out the trash, you slob”. And you are right, my house is not clean by Kenyan (or American) mama standards, but its not that bad. I do the dishes when I need them, which is every few days, and I take out the garbage when its full. I learned very quickly how bad things start to smell. And even if you could ignore the smell (which you can’t), more than three days and you have a fly nursery (aka maggots). So my house has ants and flies and it is not because I am unclean. There are three types of flies. The really big ones are shiny, iridescent green with big red eyes and the buzzing of their wings sounds like a wasp. These guys live in the choo and gross me out because I just imagine them covered in choo germs. There are medium sized flies that just hang out in my house all day landing on my toes, which tickles, on my food, or on my face. These are the ones that will fly in your mouth if you are panting up a hill. And if you think you can just pant with your mouth closed, nope, they will fly up your nose. Im not kidding, it happens to me almost daily. Then there are the tiny fruit flies. These are newcomers to the party, they just appeared a couple weeks ago. My brain’s store of Useless Knowledge tells me that fruit flies only live for 2 hours. From birth to death in 120 minutes. Well, that is too long for these bastards. They not only attack my trash, but also my fresh fruits and veggies. They get trapped inside my plastic wrapped loaves of bread. They will land on my freshly opened cans of tuna and die in the oil, while I am trying to fish their bodies out. If I take the lid of a pot of spaghetti, they are there before my spoon can serve the food. And if there is no food, they will attack anything moist. Like my face cloths, towels, and clothes that are hanging to dry. All will have a moving, black cloud surrounding them. I hate them.

Flies are bad, but worse are ants. There are lots of types of ants in my house too. And they are also impervious to all my attempts at annihilation. There are the little black ants that belong at picnics. They do not care about my dirty kitchen, they want the crummies on my floor. And if I sweep daily, they will just find corners that I cannot reach or wander around aimlessly until crummies appear. The little kids next door once walked in on me during an ant killing frenzy with a flipflop, and now know to come over every day to smush ants with their hands. I found the anthill outside, and I dump my dirty water on it every day to drown them. Then they made a tunnel in my walls, coming out where the wood of my door meets the cement. So I filled in the gap with hand lotion (that’s the only thing of paste consistency that I had). That stopped them for awhile, but they are still coming. I have taken to dumping water on the floor in front of my door, killing some and creating a temporary barrier for others. But this is a heinous waste of water in a drought ridden country, and while watching ants drown is satisfying, I feel guilty.

Those are the small ants. At night, the big ants come in. These are the half-inch long ones with visible pincers. These are the ones that hurt like a snake bite when you get bitten. The bites burn and make me gasp in pain for almost an hour, then they itch like chicken pox for, literally, weeks. They come in at night to eat the tiny ants. My tiny ant killing spree brings in the big suckers to clean up. I have to keep my feet off the floor in the evening to avoid getting bitten. With the big black ones come the big brown ones. They are a very pale brown, they might even be termites rather than ants, but they come in just to look around. And they are probably eating my doorframes to make new homes for the tiny ants. It’s the ant circle of life.

So ants and flies are the insects that, in my opinion, earn a special place in hell. The other creepy crawlies that I share my home with are the ones that should freak me out, but I welcome them with open arms. Okay, maybe not, but I at least don’t attempt to attack them with flip flops. First one: cockroach. These bad boys live in the choo, and while that is gross indeed, they are frightened away by light and then leave you in piece. Even if they are in my house, they are high in the corners trying to run away from you. No problem; I can handle that. Then there are the big spiders. I was not afraid of spiders in America, and I am not frightened here. But I probably should be. These suckers are huge! And everywhere. I sweep and the next day there are new spider webs in every corner. I do not mind because I get to watch those big green flies get caught in them; its like the Discovery Channel. But the big spiders are very big, over two inches long. They are dark brown with yellow racing stripes and they run like lightening. The other day, I saw a particularly odd spider, he looked like the same type, yellow stripes, but his back looked all fuzzy. It was very strange so I got my camera and scooched in close to him. As my camera zoomed in and focused, I realized what the “fuzzy” was. It was not a ‘he’ spider, it was a ‘she’ and the fuzz was hundreds of baby spiders hitching a ride on mommy’s back! *shudder* That even freaked me out. I took the picture, and then glanced back at ‘mom’, but she was gone. I swear to God, she had disappeared. Obviously, she sprinted to a crack in the wall to save her babies, but it was so quick I did not even see her go. So there is a family of two inch long racing spiders having flocks (what do you call a group of spiders? Herd? Bevy? Pod?) of babies in my house. That’s okay though, maybe they will team up and start a war with the ants.
PS. I decided that if there is not already a name for a group of spiders, we should call it a “charlotte”. After all, Charlotte was the one who had hundreds of babies that flew in the wind to populate the world. And Peacocks get an “ostentation”, Owls get a “parliament”, spiders should have their own. So there is a charlotte of spiders living in my house. And I hope they stay forever. Maybe they will protect the house from the rest of the bugs while I am gone.

The Scorpion and the Goat

I am tempted to start this blog with the same phrase as always, “Nothing much happened this week so I do not have much to write…”, but I know that as soon as I start typing, my brain will take over and fill the pages with my rambling. So I will just say “good morning,” and let my brain do the rest.

There was a scorpion in my house last night. I had heard they were here in Kenya, and plentiful in my desert, but I had not seen any so I thought maybe I would be spared that one pest. But it was not to be. I found the little bugger coming under my front door. When I say “little” I mean he was three inches long and a shiny black. I poked him with a stick, you know, for fun, and he ran towards me. Man those suckers are fast! As punishment for startling me with his speed, I smushed him with a shoe. Now I am on full scorpion alert; I check all my shoes before putting them on, and no more walking around the house in the dark. The Peace Corps medical handbook I have says that scorpions are not deadly, just painful, and I would be fine if stung. But I do not believe them one bit, I am staying far away with things that have stingers, poison, AND claws. My house no longer is a safe zone. I have already experienced cobras in the desert, the packs of wild dogs who roam around my school, the hyenas that laugh during the night, the civet on my porch (which looks like a panda bear, but probably eats human flesh), the wasp family that lives in my choo, the rabies-full bats in my rafters, and herds of deadly camels that look at me with the evil eye like they are waiting for an opportunity to trample me with their dinner plate-sized feet. My home was the only place I could relax and not be on the lookout for danger. But that is gone now; it started with the moths, those pesky beige butterflies that crash land into my dinner. The moths brought in ants to carry away the bodies of their fallen brothers. And now the scorpion has arrived. I am not sure why. What does he want? Dead moths? Ants? Me?

Last Sunday, my school threw a party for absolutely no reason. We invited some local teachers, slaughtered two goats, and stayed out all day. We had it at my school, down in the desert under this big scraggly tree that was growing over some big boulders. It was shady and cool because of the desert breeze. I got a little sunburnt, my first since coming to Africa. I wanted to see the slaughtering of the goat but I came too late. Since there is no refrigeration here you have to kill and eat the same day. I arrived as they were cutting everything into pieces. I have never seen so many flies in all my life. I once saw the dead body of a cow three days after it had been sitting in the sun, and there were fewer flies on it than I saw on this day. When I commented on it one guy said “desert flies don’t have bacteria, there is nothing in the desert to get bacteria from”. In America, I would have gagged and then thrown the meat out. But TIA, and we just waved at the flies until we could see what we were doing. Everyone had a job, Hassan, a fellow teacher, would bring over a huge chunk of meat, like the spine, or the shoulder. Mugambi (teacher) cut it into manageable pieces with a dull knife. Manageable pieces means anywhere there is a bone, so he separated ribs, vertebrae, tibia, etc. My job was to take the manageable pieces and cut them into bite sized morsels. The large bones were put over the coals to cook. The meat was suspended over the coals by a grill made of a frame of large sticks with a open wire grid on top. The smaller pieces were put in a sufuria (cooking pot). The outside of the pot was smeared with mud to prevent it from getting black with soot, and the pot was placed on the coals. In addition to butchering, I also played waitress and served everyone drinks, poured water for handwashing, and served the food. One of the teachers said that he had a great time simply because he was served by a mzungu. The meal was very large, it had five courses. All of it was eaten Kenya style, you pick up some chunks with greasy fingers and stuff it in your mouth along with whatever side dishes are there. Its messy and delicious, and leaves you with a nice sheen of grease on your face. The appetizer was goat ribs and the chunks of slightly burned fat from the big pieces. Second course was a bowl of meat eaten family style; everyone’s hands in the bowl grabbing the juiciest bits. For the third course, they cooked some of the small meat chunks with a tomato paste, green pepper, onion, water mixture. It turned out so amazingly good, it tasted like real American barbecue! The BBQ meat was served with a pile of the plain nyama choma (grilled meat), ugali, rice, potatoes and tomato/onion salad. Fourth course was another bowl of meat with the large bones available for gnawing. I know it sounds odd, but the large bones are the best tasting; like a dog, I could chew on them all day. The fifth course was “soup” aka goat juices and goat fat in a mug. I was full after course number 2 but I ate everything and loved every bite. Now I have a double chin. I did skip the mug of goat fat, but I got a lot of flack for it. Everyone kept telling me how healthy it was for you. One man told me that you could drink a mug of it and then run a marathon without getting tired. My principal said “if you are newly married, drink this... And that’s your son!” The men thought that was hysterical. One added “drink a glass and a half and you’ll get twins!” I stayed far away from the mug of fat.
If you are wondering what happened to the rest of the goat, i.e. the head and innards, you will be pleased to know that it did not go to waste. At the end of the party, after I had left, the remaining teachers ate all the organs. My principal got the eyes, and everything else was shared out. I was asking how they decided who got what, and I got some very interesting insights. They said that in their culture there are many superstitions that determine those details. For example, a first born cannot eat the kidney. We decided that this was because there are two kidneys and could be divided among the less important children leaving the spleen, which is healthier, for the first born. Also, never eat the tongue unless you want to have a child that talks a lot. Men should never eat the bladder or they will become sterile. I am not entirely sure if it is good for anyone to eat bladder. This discussion led to an explanation of all the strange superstitions the locals have. “Don’t sweep your house at night.” “Do not go to the choo at night or you will be attacked by a demon who will spray water on you.” That one was created to keep kids safe from animals that would hurt them. Though I don’t know why they had to make up a crazy story to convince kids. There was one that said “never milk a cow from behind or you will have bad luck”; I think your bad luck will involve you getting kicked by a cow. They say “men should never carry small children on their laps because they will get the child’s fear in their heart”; the reason for this one had something to do with not being able to run from enemies. “Don’t stand with your back to the fire or you will go blind.” Actual reason: you might fall in the fire or get burned. My favorite was “if you pee in the river after circumcision, you will have extreme pain”. It was to keep the drinking water clean. It reminded me of the American myth, “if you pee in a swimming pool, it will change color and everyone will know”. There were more myths but I cannot remember them all. My teachers said that they did not believe any of these superstitions but that many, if not all, of the local people do. Very interesting stuff.

Alright, I will end there for today before I continue to ramble on. This is the last week before exams and it is crawling by. I cannot wait until end of term when I can go to the coast and relax on a beach. It is so close, I can taste it. Next week is exams, and right now I am off to class to play “Physics Jeopardy!” for review. The prize for the winner: a real American dollar bill!
Thanks for reading and have a good week!

Vacation is Coming up!

Another week down, two more to go until vacation. I have started my Nairobi shopping list and it is all food items. Mostly spices, I am tired of food without flavor. Next term I was to start a small herb garden next to my house. My neighbors have one, though theirs is just full of sukuma wiki. The growing season is long here, I never have to worry about winter destroying my plants. There is a danger that goats will get to them, but I can make a fence out of acacia branches. The inch long thorns will keep anything away. Hopefully, if my food is more flavorful, I won’t have to eat so much just to feel satisfied. It is amazing how my appetite has grown. I no longer fit into half my wardrobe, anything that is not a loose, flow-y skirt is now in a can’t-fit-over-my-butt pile in my spare room. I don’t really mind the weight, I don’t have a mirror and no one here will notice, but I have no place to go to replace my diminishing wardrobe. I can’t run down to walmart and pick up some new jeans. I am going to try to get in shape, and I’d like it if that shape was not a circle. You’d think that walking 6 km a day through a desert would be effective for working off the pounds, but you’d be wrong. Either I am walking too leisurely, though I think I might sweat to death if I try harder, or I am really just turning into a gigantic pig who eats everything she sees.

Last weekend, Curtis, my fellow mzungu teacher who lives in town, finally was able to come to my village for a visit. The Brothers of St. Paul who run the school next to me have a vehicle and they invited him for dinner. It was the first time he has been able to come here. I felt a silly sense of pride when showing him around. I really feel like this is my place now, it used to be just the place I was staying. But now it is home. And it is mine. My little house, my little goat neighbor, my oceanic view, my camels, my desert. Curtis was also properly awed with the distance I have to walk to school everyday, the remoteness of the open desert, and the beauty of the scrub brush dotted with thatch huts. I am looking at my tiny town and my huge desert with new appreciation and love.

The term ends in two weeks and I am planning my trip away from here. I have been aching to escape for weeks, but as the days count down, I am starting to think about leaving and I think I will really miss it. So many times in the last two months I have been unsure if I could really do this. Living here has been so hard and many times I was just holding on to the thought of vacation. There were times when I wanted to go home so badly I had to argue with myself and force myself to stay. But now, I feel stronger and more able to do this. I think I can do it. I can live here with no internet, terrible cell service, and no cheese. I have gotten used to seeing more camels than cars, and now the alternative is what seems odd. The thought of Nairobi and all the stuff that it offers is very exciting and a little scary. I am nervous about the culture shock even though I have only been here for 3 months. Marsabit town seems loud and too busy for me; I can’t imagine how Nairobi is going to freak me out. I go to town once a week and I am starting to not enjoy it. I like the unlimited internet, and the cold beer. But I do not like shopping, or walking around. Everyone is calling to me, there are too many places to buy vegetables, and too many stores to go to. I always end up forgetting something because I am too uncomfortable to bargain with the women and keep track of my grocery list. Actually, I had not even thought how much I disliked town until I wrote it down just now. This revelation kinda freaks me out. How much have I changed in the last three months? Am I really that uncomfortable? I guess when I meet my American friends for vacation, they will let me know how weird I have become.

As of March 13, I have been in Kenya for 5 months. This is so close to the 6 month milestone. Before I left America, I told myself that if I absolutely hated it, I could come home after 6 months. 6 months seemed like a decent amount of effort and an acceptable stopping point. Now that I am getting close, I am so certain I can make it through my whole service. The first 6 months is supposed to be the hardest. Once that is out of the way, the rest will go by so fast. Training in Loitokitok for 3 months seemed like it lasted an eternity. The first two months here in Marsabit seemed faster, but they still crawled by. I feel like I can remember every single day of the first two months at my site. But this last month has started to pick up the pace, the days are starting to blur together. I just know I can make it through the remaining 22 months, and I know that it will go by too fast for comfort.
Again, I start writing thinking to myself that I have nothing to say. The week has been slow and nothing interesting has happened. I sit at my computer and somehow my brain takes over and fills up the page with things I did not even know I was thinking about. I always plan on writing only a few paragraphs, and I always end up with a much longer diatribe. Anyway, I am going to make myself stop now, I can feel my brain has more to say, but I need to go write my exams and eat a gigantic, carb-full lunch. And then maybe I’ll try to sew myself a skirt that will fit me.