airplane head

Hujambo!

I am alive. And I'm pretty sure my bottom is never going to forgive me for making it sit through two days of flights.

About seven other LC students flew out of PDX with me. The flight was luxuriously empty -- several of us got whole rows to ourselves. I sat in every seat in my row (windows for takeoff, middle for the movie Kungfu Panda, which I managed to watch twice and missed the first half hour both times, and the aisle for talking to my trip buddies).

We were in Chicago long enough to grab a toilet (freaky automated seat covers) and a bite (seven dollar veggie sub) and then it was a packed red-eye flight to London on an Air Bus. Two little British boys in front of me were arguing over seats or something, and the girl next to me had such a strong Dublin accent I could barely understand her. So I slept.

In London, Professor Dave Campion, our fearless leader (he has forbidden us calling him Captain -- I asked), met us. The rest of our group was there too. My first conversation with DC went like this:

DC: Did you have a good summer?
me: Yes.
DC: Do you want money?
me: YES!

DC gave us a walking tour of downtown London, as promised. We stopped every few blocks for 30 second history lessons. DC tried to shake us off for lunch, but about eight of us had come down with Baby Duck Syndrome, and we trailed him to the nearest pub. Most of the students took advantage of the 18 year drinking age in Britain to order a pint, but I was more interested in a sandwich. We took the tube back to the terminal for boarding another red-eye. To Nairobi. While we were waiting for our gate announcement, Lea lost her passport and boarding ticket, but someone turned it in to the gate. DC said not to expect the same outcome for a lost passport in Nairobi.

Virgin Atlantic is not named that for nothing. Seriously, every flight attendant was an attractive young British lady. Coincidence? I think not! They also all had a weird habit of calling me "darling." Other than a very angry bottom, it was quite an enjoyable flight. I slept.

Much to my happy surprise, my checked bag ACTUALLY made it to Nairobi! No one in our group lost any luggage, except Lea lost her hat in the river in London and one of the guys left his book on the plane.

Dave Sperling, our IA professor in Kenya, met us at the airport and showed us to our shuttle bus. It was a long early-morning ride through totally insane traffic. There are no stoplights except in the city, so it's pretty muc a free for all on the roads. People -- tons of people -- were walking along the sides of the roads and all over the place. They catch "mini buses," which are actually sketch-looking 14-seater vans that seem to stop wherever a bunch of people have congregated. It was kind of surreal, but also I still have airplane head, which is a very similar feeling to being on morphine pills -- your brain turns into a confused elevators that jitters between levels -- so everything is a bit surreal anyway.

We took a shuttle to the Methodist Guest House, where we'll be for the next few days until we meet our host families. This place is swank. Lea and I are rooming together -- we have horizontal beds with mosquito nets (not really needed in Nairobi), at attached bathroom, and even a little tv neither of us has touched.

Since our plane landed at crazy o'clock am, we had the whole day free. After breakfast in the dining hall (bread, boiled eggs, pineapple, starfruit juice), a bunch of us decided to hit the city. Autrey called a cab, then made friends with the cab driver, so we got the same guy for the same reasonable price on the way back too.

We split once we got downtown -- Autrey and a few others wanted to check out the Casino, the rest of us didn't -- and we changed our American bills to Kenya shillings. As soon as we left the steps of the Hilton, we were the ONLY non-African people around. And there were TONS of people. People mostly seem to speak Swahili to one another, but everyone we talked to also understands English.

The city seems to be arranged so that places that sell, say, hardware are all condensed to a few blocks, and then you turn the corner and it's all places that sell electronics. It's all pretty dodgy-looking, and super busy. If you space out for three seconds, you'll smash into people or run into a car.

We popped into a sports store and Lea bought a green Kenya soccer ball. They didn't have frisbees but they did have a Barack Obama shirt for sale.

We decided to take at seat at a cafe and just watch people for awhile, so we picked the nearest one that had a balcony overlooking the street. We just wanted to order juices, but they were out. So we tried to order chips. Out. Snacks? Nope. We ended up with chapati and fruit salad. We tried to communicate that we only wanted one chapati and one fruit salad, but the waiter brought us three chapati and a fruit salad. The chapati here is more like fried naan than the chapati I'm used to getting at Indian restaurants. Both were good, and it was about $2 American total. The waiter seemed disappointed that the five of us were ordering so little. He'd even moved the tables for us so we could all sit together.

Back at the Guest House, I went in the pool, fell asleep on the concrete (oops), and showered for the second time. I'm looking forward to a whole night of horizontal sleep. Seriously. You have no idea.

We start classes tomorrow. Crazy. Four hours of Swahili and two hours of IA!