on the fritz

I forgot the word for goat. And I completely missed an entire small essay. Other than that the Swahili exam went well, all two and a half hours of it. Also I feel a little bit better about missing the essay because a whole bunch of other students didn't see it either. My hope is that the Swahili teachers will take that into consideration and adjust accordingly. My vote goes for making that question into extra credit.

After the exam, Adam and I went to the national annual Agricultural Fair. It was pretty much your typical country fair -- prizes for the biggest pig and tents with information about how to grow tea and fight pests organically. The highlight of the Fair was mama signed me up to ride a camel. Camels are weird creatures. I mean really. That camel made sounds like it had swallowed a model T engine on the fritz and an unattended electric kettle too. It was pretty concerning. I sampled camel milk too, because when else am I going to get the opportunity?

Our Going Away luncheon as on Saturday. We all pitched in with the cooking. I cut up close to a zillion cucumber, zucchini, and eggplants for a massive pot of vegetable stew. During the luncheon, I got to carry around baby Kamau. He fell asleep on my shoulder. I am actually going to keep him.

Power outages ("blackouts" is the local term) are frequent in Kenya. Ten minutes after Las Dos Caras de Ana ended, the power blew. Africa isn't called the dark continent for nothing! For probably the only time in my life, we celebrated my birthday in the dark. Mama baked a cake uing half a box of old brownie mix and haphazardly estimated quantities of various other ingredients. The oven, it turns out, is broken, so the cake was baked dutch oven style -- hot coals piled on the lid of the pan set over more hot coals. It worked out and the cake was yummy. Mama even managed to round up twenty birthday candles, which eased the blackout for the three minutes they were lit. It was a lot of fun and super sweet of them.

It took me two hours to pack everything the next morning. I'm stil baffled at how I fit it all. We had birthday cake for breakfast. I walked all the way to a cyber before remembering the power was still out. I learned how to carry a baby on my back Kikuyu style with Grace and her mama while waiting for mama wangu to finish getting ready to go out to lunch. African baby-carrying is so much more awesome than newfangled Amerian backpacks and frontpacks. You can actually feel the kid and can tell what's up with her.

My family and Collin and Adam's family went out for lunch for the last time (riding in the back of a pickup truck -- it was raining again, of course), where we were serve approximately three quarters of a goat and several chickens. Mama Florence kept insisting the chicken was actually flamingo, but I was having none of her nonsense. Florence's granddaughter Flora, who is quite possibly the most obnoxious three-year-old on the planet (and this coming from someone who adores three-year-olds), entertained herself by beating on Collin and me. I practiced my Swahili with her since we're both at the beginning stages of language acquisition, and I'm all sorts of pleased to report that I'm improving.

We were dropped a Methodis Guest NHouse late in the afternoon. For the first time in literally a month I had a simultaneously hot and running shower. Ah, luxury. We went out for steller Ethiopian food for dinner and seemed to have been charged a wazungu tax, but whatever I was sooo good.

We took a bus to Mombasa that was so massive that it is probably soley responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. It was supposed to be about an 8 hour trip, but the bus broke down about two hours from Mombasa and sundown. We climbed up on top of the bus to avoid lions (don't worry, we weren't actually in lion territory) and watched the sunset. It was beautiful, if a bit inconvenient.

In true Maisha fashion, I got terribly sick on my birthday (well, the following morning). I got a bug from who know what, and wasn't keeping down even water for about 36 hours there. We were on and off buses all day, seeing Fort Jesus and buying kikoi in the marketplace at Mombasa, both of which woul have been enjoyable had I been feeling better. I actually fell asleep on the concrete at Fort Jesus because there was a sign on the grass that said Do Not Walk on the Grass. When it became apparent that over-the-counter meds were not fixing me, I was instructed to break out the cipro, which I obligingly took along with water and rehydration salts. I'm feeling much better now, but there were a couple of days there that were pretty unhappy. When I finally resurfaced and was able to appreciate where we were, I discovered we'd driven to paradise. You know those ads for exotic vacations that somehow have pristinely deserted tropical beaches? That was this place. Dunno what it's called, but we were at a resort about an hour north of Mombasa. It was stunningly beautiful. And best, there was no one around because it's not tourist season. I even woke up early on Thursday morning to watch the sunrise over the Indian Ocean -- which you can walk out into for about a mile before it gets deep, by the way, at the place we were staying. Zillions of shells all over the beach, too. Oh, and the beach was actually pretty much connected to our hotel. Incredible.

I seem to be uncharacteristically accident prone in East Africa. I managed to ram my left hand into a moving ceiling fan. Banged my fingers up a bit, but no permanent damage.

Before leaving for Zanzibar, our bus carried us to the Gede ruins outside of Mombasa. We got to walk all over this super neat old stone village. The Swahili people were clever several hundred years ago! They'd worked out how to rig a central cooling system and some rudimentary plumbing. There was a Tarzan-style treehouse way up in the top of a baobab tree there, so we could look out onto the entire wreckage of what was once Gede. We also got to sample baobab fruit, which is in the running for weirdest fruit in existence. It's super dry and crumbly on the inside -- you could never make baobab fruit juice. It's about the same texture as freeze-dried ice cream.

We're now in Zanzibar. We took a little puddle-jumper to get here. Tomorrow we'll start our three-day homestay on Pemba island, and after that it's back to Zanzibar for about a week. My internet access is drawing to a close -- probably only another few entries before we start safari.

smell like green

We rolled out of Satellite on our very own bus captained by our noble conductor Bonafice on Tuesday before 9am. Dave Sperling and D Camp caravaned in a sedan as a safety precaution (presumably to be used in case a hospital run became necessary). Bonafice rocked out to a hilarious mixtape of 80s and 90s classics -- badly recorded reggae style covers. My favourite was the reggae non-Cher cover of “Believe."

The drive was BEAUTIFUL IN ALL CAPITALS. We zipped through hours of banana plantations, rice paddies, and valleys so green I thought we might’ve been teleported to South America when I wasn’t looking. The highlands get a lot more rainfall than elsewhere and so look like Timon and Pumbaa’s slice of the Lion King. We shot along at about 80 miles an hour with the windows open wide. It was so nice to breathe fresh air again. Nairobi is choked with pollution, and everywhere in and around Satellite smells like a combination of chicken, goat, their poop, unclean dog, and burning wet garbage. The highlands, by contrast, smell like green.

We spent several sunburnt hours wandering around Embu in groups of two or three, attempting to tick items off our scavenger hunt list. Cara, Courtney, Adams, and I had lunch in a combination butcher shop/restaurant (I only wanted a soda) that had a fresh slab of disturbingly dead mammal suspended on a hook in the front window. I was revolted. This is my revolted face. I focused on my Stoney's ginger beer, which seems to only be available in Kenya and is basically ginger ale that kicks your butt with its ginger power skills. It's a Coca-Cola product that doesn't exist in the US.

Embu was fairly uneventful, except when Cara and I got tailed by a creepster hustler; when a van with 50 or 60 live chickens lashed to the roof by their feet drove by; and when I had to scare a glue kid off our bus. Oh, glue kids! Glue kids seem to exist in most medium-size cities. They're street kids who are so addicted to sniffing what mama wangu explained as shoe glue that their brains are pretty much soup. It's really sad. Some of these kids are primary-school age, and their futures are tattered jackets and plastic bottles filled with poison. We were under strict instructions from D Sperling not to make any sort of contact with these kids at all, but it's really hard to ignore four or five faces and several knocking fists separated from you by only half an inch of bus window plexiglass.

There was a bit of a mixup with our Embu hotel -- a large group was supposed to have checked out and hadn't, so there wasn't room to accommodate us. We ended up instead at a nearby hotel painted entirely in soft shades of pink and green. Baller. We were all in singles, too, except for maybe two doubles and the handful of boys who boarded across the street due to a slight lack of rooms. We had the run of the hotel, and we seized the opportunity to play cards (loudly and competitively) until late.

I'd gotten sunburned during the Embu Scavenger Hunt, and I stupidly left my aloe vera in my room at Satellite, just like every other student on the trip. Tosti (Sonia) lent me her tube of what she called "Skin Food," and I'm totally sold. I've no idea what's in it since the label is written entirely in German, but I burned every day of the trip (despite liberal applications of SPF 30) and every evening Tosti's magic goo returned me to Maisha-coloured. (The fresh aloe we found growing at the hotel and harvested may have helped too.)

On our way to Meru on Wednesday, we stopped at a pull-off for a photo opp, leg stretcher, and pee-in-the-bushes break. Our various necessities taken care of, we returned to the bus, and two or three students opted to ride in the Professor Car to free up some of the seats in our very crowded bus. What we didn't realise was that Kennedy (that's Kenneth, but we call him Kennedy because our Swahili teachers all seem to think that's his name) had not boarded either vehicle. Half an hour later, we pulled over to to discuss the route, and the bus kids realised Kennedy wasn't in the Professor Car as we'd thought, and vice versa. We had left Kennedy at the pullout! And of course his cell phone was packed in his backpack, safely stowed under a seat on the bus. D Sperling went back for him alone while the rest of us continued on. He found him napping under a tree, a pile of empty banana peels discarded nearby. Kennedy reports that he watched us pull away, figured we'd figure out he was missing eventually and come back for him, and so he took the opportunity to buy a bunch of Meru bananas and take a nap in the shade. He and D Sperling caught up with us at the school we were to visit outside of Meru.

We've all been obsessive about accounting for everyone since then. Really. Parents, you can relax.

The school we visited was an amazing experience. After we had tea and snack/lunch and took a tour, the secondary schoolers were led outside for Meet The Wazungu. It was SUPER awkward at first because we hadn't been briefed beyond "we're visiting a school." We had no idea what to do, what was expected of us, how long we'd be there -- anything. We tried to mingle and introduce ourselves and ask basic questions ("What sports do you play?" being the most popular) and we weren't getting much response. Eventually, some kids got frisbee and volleyball games started, and Anna and I taught tons of girls how to play "Down By The Banks." We wrote out the words (with Swahili vowels for the phonetic non-words parts) and taught both parts of the hand clapping. In return, a few of the girls tried to teach us one of their hand jives, which I had loads of trouble with because I'm such a slow kinesthetic learner.

When the primary school kids let out, they surrounded us. I had a fabulous time with this herd of children. I dispensed thousands of nipe tanos (that's "give me five"s) and handshakes. They were all fascinated by my hair, so several times I dipped down and allowed literally hundreds of small hands to maul my head from all directions. I retaliated by petting all their shaven heads (shaved is part of the dress code at this particular school at the primary level). At first they shrieked and backed away, but then they figured out what I was doing and started sticking their heads forward, Me First style. It was loads of fun.

Everyone else seemed exhausted, but I could've kept on for another few hours. When we finally boarded the bus and drove out, the children chased us down the road for so long we started making cracks about them training for the Kenya National Track Team. I got it on video on my digital camera.

I was assigned the Zebra Room at the hotel in Meru! No joke! The next morning we were headed for Nanyuki.

We stopped in Isiolo on our way to Nanyuki. Isiolo is mostly Muslim, and there was a beautiful mosque presiding over the city. A whole bunch of wanted to go investigate it. Mistake #1: Women are not allowed through the main entrance. We were already out of our shoes and had started removing our socks when the locals stopped us and pointed women to a side entrance. Mistake #2: Non-Muslims are not allowed inside. The girls were halfway up the side steps when Kowalski hailed us to inform us he'd just found out we were forbidden entrance. Oh well. Kowalski and I spent the rest of the hour questing for a functioning cyber (to no avail) and chasing off hawkers, glue kids, and creepsters.

In Nanyuki, I spent the evening and the preceding bus ride doing homework. We were assigned approximately four hours of reading, three essays, the usual journal entries, and we have our written Swahili final on Friday to study for. Every now and then, our professors like to remind us that this is an academic overseas programme. (I managed to finish everything before Monday morning, and I was even in bed before 1am, though I had to prod Liz into going to bed at midnight. She was determined to stay up till I'd finished, but she was asleep in front of the telly and I felt bad.)

Most of us woke up at 6am to climb to the roof and see the peak of Mt Kenya before the daily haze rolled in. We were high enough up in the mountains that the peak resembled a pointy hill more than a mountain, but it was still pretty.

On our way out we stopped at the Mt Kenya Safari Club. It's a super ritzy resort that you normally have to pay an entrance fee just to pass the gates and have a look around. We only got in for free because D Sperling convinced the owners that we were Serious Students interested in the on-site conservatory and possibly staying at the end of our trip. And we each had to buy a soda. Yeah RIGHT we'd stay there! It's 900 USD per night! You can order a several hundred dollar martini that comes with a complimentary hunk of tanzanite, one of the most expensive semi-precious stones in the world. A little bit out of our price range, not to mention our comfort range. The coolest thing about the Club was we all got to straddle the equator before we left. Shockingly, it's not as exciting as you'd imagine. My feet didn't feel like they were spinning in opposite directions or anything.

When we got back to Satellite, I found my first tailored leso shirt/dress/thing finished and folded on my bed! It's super awesome! And purple and yellow!

On Saturday, mama wangu took me and Adam to her shamba (farm). We met baba wangu there and Liz showed up just in time for lunch. They all wanted me to slaughter a chicken, but I was not having any of it, so I opted to watch while Adam did the deed. I helped pluck it, though. Liz declared me an accomplice to assassination -- this was, we agreed, a very important chicken, and so "murder" doesn't quite do it justice. I'll probably go hardcore vegetarian upon my return to the States, although I admit that there's something sadistically fun about yanking all the feathers off a chicken.

At the shamba, I also carried around a full-size turkey and watched baba force-feed turkey chicks (they're poor eaters on their own and he was giving them medicine mixed with ultra nutritional feed). Adam scaled a windmill for kicks.

It was peaceful at the shamba. I'm glad I got to visit, even if I chickened out when chicken kill time came. Yes, I did just make that pun. Feel free to send the Pun Police after me.

P.S. - A brief note on nicknames. We have three Adams and two Sonias (with different spellings). Since we don't discriminate, more people than just these five have garnered nicknames. Here's the key:

Adam Kowalski = Kowalski
Adam Lipus = Adams (that's what his host mama calls him, so it's stuck)
Adam Lane = Adam
Sonia Stolfo = Tosti or SS Pickle or Captain Pickle
Sonya with a Y = Shorty (she likes it, I checked)
Mika = Kuzubaa (the verb for to daydream)
Anja = Ann-jah, Onion (something to do with phonetics, I think)
Kenneth = Kennedy
Daniel = The Big One, Jesus Christ, or The Brother of Jesus Christ (all ways local Kenyans have repeatedly described him)
Dave Campion = D Camp or DC
Dave Sperling = D Sperling, D Sper, or The Dave

that's all that immediately come to mind.

the science of freckles

Liz goes to a performance arts festival thingy in Nairobi once a month. She was telling me about it on Saturday. It sounds wicked wild -- graffiti competition, live music, a freestyle rap-off, slam poetry -- the works. When I inquired (eagerly) which weekend it happens on so that we might go, she looked at the clock and said, "Ohhh... it's today, but now it's too late for us to go. We wouldn't arrive in time. Lamesauce. However, she's going to look up the dates and locations of the next ones for me, since several other major East African cities host the same event. Maybe I'll get to go to the one in Mombasa or something.

On Sunday, mama wangu and mama Florence (Collin and Adam's host mother) took me, Adam, and Daniel to Boma. The ride there was long and exciting: we almost got pickpocketed in the matatu (mama Flo scared the pickpocket off) and then the City Hoppa bus we'd switched to ran out of gas in the middle of the road. We had to disembark and flag another matatu. All in all, I think it took us about five "cars" (that seems to be colloquial for any public transport vehicles) to get to Boma.

At Boma, we climbed around in various traditional huts. Boma (which I think translates to something similar to village) is a cultural centre type thingy that Kenyan schoolchildren are taken to on field trips so many times that by the time they're Liz's age they have no desire to visit again. We marveled at some tribes' apparent dexterity with the kind of plastic some people line their gardens with. (In the huts, it was being used underneath the thatch roofs.)

We had lunch. There were monkeys in the trees. Monkeys! In the trees! Like squirrels or something! And I discovered drinking Sprite from a straw in a glass bottle, which is a weirder experience than you might think.

After lunch, we watched a variety of traditional dances and musical performances. I thought the drums would be my favourite, until the last group came out. Their performance was announced as "acrobatics," but it was way more than that. It was pretty much Cirque du Soleil without the strings, mixed with breakdancing, mixed with an all-male cheerleading squad, plus hardcore jumproping... in zebra suits. I especially liked when they broke out the limbo stick and then lit it on fire.

We'd seen camels on our way in to Boma, and mama wanted me to ride one, which I was game for. But when we came out from the dance performance, there was a distinct lack of camels. Oh well. Next time.

At one point this weekend mama asked me about those spots on my arms. She was very concerned and wanted to know what had caused them. So I explained the science of freckles and the difference between freckles and birthmarks.


I made friends with Bogwa. I gave him a sticker and helped him hold the kitty that'd been hanging around our front door all morning. Liz reports that after I left with mama for Boma, Bogwa was asking after me. In very fractured Swahili. (He's still learning how to speak.) Related: I got to play with two babies on Saturday. Kamau (again) and Muriuki, who is one month older.

Mama had to run some errands on Thursday and toted me along. At the tailor's, she tried on her orders-in-progress and I exclaimed over the awesomeness of having lesos (kangas -- traditional big sheets of fabric that are used for everything from a bikini wrap to strapping an infant to your back) made into custom outfits for around 400 shillings ($5 American). Mama's gonna take me to get measured this week so I can have one too -- her idea. I'm stoked! Tomorrow, my classmates and I are all leaving for a three-day excursion to Embu, though, so maybe mama and I will fit it in after school today.

I've made it my personal mission to dispense smiles to casual passersby. Often. Although I do favour kids and try to avoid all contact with sketchy drunk men. I report an average rate of 67% smileback.

cheese dependent

On Monday, Cara, Adams, Sonya and I played an improvised soca/monkey-in-the-middle game in Cara's compound. Her little sister Kikiri totally schooled us. Anjd she was in a long dress and socks on gravel. Oh, and she's nine. Rose, the House Help, played too, but she had a hard time of it because she was in flip-flops.

On Tuesday, mama wangu introduced me to another baby! Can you believe, there's a five-month-old living basically next door and I had no idea. Her mom told me I can come over anytime. I will. Usually baby Grace's big brother Bogwa is on babysitting duty, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind a break. He's about four and he just parks himself and the baby in front of the tv most of the time.

At Liz's suggestion, I let Bogwa and Tony (his older brother -- I'd hazard a guess at age 8) choose a fun-patterned pencil each from the giveaway collection I brought. They were delighted, and Bogwa was still carrying his around a few hours later.

Mama wangu taught me how to make chapati! I took notes as I helped, but mama doesn't believe in measuring, just in "using your brain," so my directions are fairly vague, like "mix flour and water until it's the consistency of bread dough." They don't even own measuring devices. I asked. It seems like all of my classmates plan on cooking or baking something for their host families (many of them already have), but I'm super intimidated by my lack of familiarity with how to use the things in mama's kitchen. We have a stove/oven, but as far as I can tell it's rarely used. Most meals are made over some kind of cook stove that involves gasoline and tall flames. Seriously, the house smells like a petrol station everyday when dinnertime rolls round. (Benzine!) I'm still not really used to it. Also, my family members are not fans of cheese, which reduces my repertoire of cookable options to about two things. I am cheese dependent. Would it make me a bad person if I never make dinner for my host family? What if I fed them pb&j sandwiches?

The Gate Man who lets us in and out of school (his name is Justus, but he's Gate Man in my head) has taken to telling me "I love you," every time I leave. This is probably my fault, as I made the mistake of engaging him in friendly conversation shortly after we began lessons instead of treating him like a rock. A rock that knows how to unbolt gates. And makes you ask to be let out in Swahili.

D. Camp (that's Professor Dave Campion for those who prefer using respectfully official titles with authority figures) has started our history lessons. Maybe it's just because I'm a bit of a history geek, but I'm actually enjoying the homework readings and in-class lectures. However, this might be tempered by the fact that D. Camp was wearing something akin to pyjamas during his first lecture. Hmm. Nope, it's gotta be the subject matter. British Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolutions are my favourite.

I let Liz paint all my nails silver. She was thrilled to pieces. Now she's asking if any of my friends want their nails done.

And just so you know, I nearly had to type this whole thing twice, because just as I was getting ready to hit Publish Post the power went out in the entire cyber cafe. Fortunately, blogspot autosaved recently enough that I don't think anything was lost! (I'm at a different cyber cafe halfway down the block.)

linkage addage

If you're into following as many East Africa 2008 Study Abroad blogs as possible, please note that I've added to the "Blogs & Photo Galleries" list over on the right side of your screen. (I'm talking to you, mom!) To my knowledge, that's a complete list of everyone who has created and is willing to share a blog. Plus a few flickrs.

animated flying glass shards

Imagine a cross between Portland Saturday Market, Pierre 1 Imports, and the sleeziest car sales lot you've ever been to. Welcome to the Nairobi Maasai Market! Mama wangu and Liz took Rachel, Adam, Collin, and me on a tour of citycentre on Saturday, including a visit to Maasai Market. The Market was filled with vendors selling their beautiful hand-made wares -- clothes, jewelry, statuettes and carvings, masks, batiks, baskets -- all arranged carefully on blankets. The vendors were like car lot sharks that not only implore you to take your time and promise a good price, but also have a disconcerting habit of calling you sister and touching you. Oh, and they all wanted to buy my bandana off my head. Two different guys offered me their whole inventory in exchange for my bandana. Seriously, if you're ever coming to Nairobi, don't bother with cash. Just pack an entire suitcase full of generic bandanas and you'll score big at Market.

I practiced bargaining in Swahili. It worked!

I definitely plan on going back.

We also went to the 1998 bomb blast memorial site. Maybe I can use the excuse that I was only ten at the time or that American schools refuse to teach anything other than American history and politics, but I had no idea that a significant building in downtown Nairobi was the target of a hugely devastating terrorist attack fairly recently. Several of the Kenyans I know (including my Swahili teacher Ruth and Collin and Adam's mama) have scars on their faces from flying glass shards propelled by the explosion. It was a nice memorial as far as memorials go -- a park, tea, and a documentary. With animated flying glass shards.

Slight digression: Kikuyu tea is genius. I don't know what's in it (I suspect ginger, amoung other things), but I'm bringing tons of it back to Portland with me. End digression.

We stopped by the place where some of Adam and Collin's family members work. It's a Coca-Cola distribution warehouse and it was wicked cool. Mama wangu explained that plastic soda bottles cost five to ten shillings more than glass, and that's why almost all the Coke and Fanta bottles in Kenya are oldschool glass.

Things you can be arrested for:
1. Smoking in City Centre. There are designated Smoke Zones cordoned off with cyclone fence.
2. Spitting or littering.
3. Failing to pause when the flag is being raised or lowered.
4. Not wearing a seatbelt in matatu or public bus. (No standing.)

Jamaa wangu is very curious about how things are different in America. My favourite question so far was "Do they stone people in your place?", which Mama wangu asked while watching the Friday evening news. I responded with a rather shocked "NO!" Apparently, Kenyans are not fans of crime, especially theft, and the citizens will take it upon themselves to punish perpetrators caught in the act. With stones. So don't shout "Thief!" and point unless you're absolutely positive about the accusation.

At one point downtown a little boy attached himself and his theatrically sad face to my arm. I'm pretty sure he was begging for money. I managed to say in relatively fluid Swahili, "Hapana, pole, sina pesa. Mimi ni mwanafunzi, si mtali." (No, sorry, I don't have any money. I'm a student, not a tourist.) He took off. Awesome!

We went to Catholic mass on Sunday. It was pretty similar to church at home, but with a much more musically talented congregation. I swear everyone was singing harmonies. Cecelia was up front signing for deaf people. I made sure to ask before going if there were things I should or shouldn't do since I'm not Catholic. I was barred from taking Communion, but a lot of people remained in their seats for that part, so it was chill. I'm super curious what those wafers taste like, though -- they were round and shiny and nothing like the rough sourghdough bread that represents the body of Christ at the churches I've been to at home.

We almost got arrested on the way home from church. A cop boarded our bus and we all scrambled to fasten our safety belts -- but they were all broken. I'm a little unclear as to why the cop let us all off. Mama wangu mentioned several things, including "just giving us a scare," "if it were a matatu instead of a city bus," "all the belts are spoiled," and "the lady with the Salvation Army clothes at front." Whatever, I'm just pleased to be unarrested.

I met a baby. I might just keep him. He's mama wangu's nephew, he's four months old, and his name is Kamau. I plan to wander over there after school sometime this week and offer free babysitting for a few hours so his mom can have a break.

Also, I plan to get together with some of the other LC students after school someday. We can form a wazungu "soca" team and get totally schooled by Satellite's best child football players.

Liz got her hair plaited yesterday. It's suddenly three times longer than it was in the morning. I was told it would take "one or two hours," which translates in African Time to about five hours. Mama wangu and I stopped by at 7pm to see how she was progressing (she needed to be finished before 8pm for Las Dos Caras De Ana), and she still had a ways to go, so mama and I pitched in. In the time it took me to do seven braids, the professional salon lady did like 30. We got out of there just in time for Ana!

I rescued a spider and two grasshoppers from the house and brushed dead ant carcasses off my bed. Good thing I'm not much fazed by bugs. Liz flips whenever there is or might be a bug in the vicinity, and calls me to take care of it.

Liz taught me how to wash clothes by hand and hang them. Good thing, because I'd been out of underwear for two days. Awkward.

Here's your Swahili phrase for the day: "Nipe tano!" It means "give me five!" and it's popular with kids.

butterfly hurricanes

Coming from an American home where the tv is rarely turned on unless it's the Olympics or Obama, I find it incredibly distracting to have the tv on for ambiance. It is super common for Kenyan tvs to be on the vast majority of the time, regardless of what's going on in the house. For instance, on Monday I sat down in the living room and spread my homework on the coffee table, and mama wangu immediately asked me if she should "put on the telly or radio" for me. I explained that I needed to concentrate, and that at home I'm not used to watching tv.

Dinner is eaten in front of the tv. There's no other table in the house. Breakfast, better known as "taking tea," is also in front of the tv. And all social interaction. I do like picking Swahili words out of the evening newscasts, but it seems really weird to divide attention between the tv programme and the people in the room.

And Spanish soaps! Oh, Spanish soaps. Everyone in jamaa langu (except for Cecelia) is totally addicted to a truly horrendous Spanish soap opera called "Los Dos Caras De Ana" (The Two Sides Of Ana). Not only is the plot trite as only soap plots can be, but the dialogue is dubbed into English by voice actors that must never have seen the script or the episode before stumbling into the recording studio. They have no inflection, despite the film actors' efforts to vary their facial expressions to fit the continually more dramatic situations. It is actually painful to watch. I can feel my brain cells shriveling. But when it comes on at 8pm on Saturday and Sunday, everyone in the family instantly materialises in the living room to find out what will happen to Ignacio now that he's broken out of rehab, and Ignacio's failing poet brother who just took a whole bottle of sleeping pills, etc.

At school, sometimes we hold lessons in the dark. On Tuesday the power was out, so we listened to historical digressions in the sleepy twilight of our crowded living room-cum-classroom.

No one wanted to stick around for a study/homework session after class because we couldn't see our papers and because we could hear thunder rolling in the distance. Rain was coming. We tried to beat it, but we got caught in an African rainstorm on the way home. Children were sprinting past with their schoolbooks over their heads shouting "Run, Wazungu!" The roads all flooded, so even though we got very wet, we were glad we'd decided to brave the rain and go home, because if we stayed at school we would've been there all night. I originally wrote this in my journal by the waning light filtering in through the window in our nyumbani. The power eventually came back on, but like the rains, the power's been on and off all week.

I love the children. No one is shy about staring at us, but unlike adults, the kids actually smile. I've never been so amused by answering the question "How are you?" about 30 times a day. I also love asking the kids "Sasa?" and getting a chorus of "Fit!" in response. (That's slang for "how are you?" "Fine." Literally it means "Now?" and fit like from English.) Also, the kids start wearing school uniforms around age three and continue until university. It's really cute. I'm sure they hate it, but I find it endearing.

Study abroad programmes are supposed to teach you new things. Africa is teaching me how to self-medicate. In Portland, I don't have allergies. But here, I've been sneezing so much that it's probably triggering butterfly hurricanes in Japan. Since scoring some non-drowsy Benadryl from Sonya, though, I've reduced it to a manageable average of 20 sneezes a day.

Swahili lessons are insane. We've been in classes for just over a week and we've already been presented with five different tenses. Normally in language classes you get one, maybe two tenses per semester. Tomorrow our teachers are taking us to mokoni (the market) to practice our Swahili bartering skills and number vocabulary. I'm not real keen on the idea, since I'm not much of a barterer.

On Saturday jamaa wangu will take me to mjini (downtown) to tour the bomb blast site and get a feel for the geography of the city. They're also taking me to the Maasai market. My sister Liz has promised to make sure I don't have to pay mzungu prices (mzungu is the singular of wazungu, if you were confused), which is very nice of her. We'll be taking the public bus. I'm super fond of the matatus after today -- we went to the Karen Blixen House (unexciting, but great coffee) via our own personal matatu which was painted with the classic Bob Marley face, and we blasted -- I mean blasted -- reggae all the way there and back.

jamaa wangu

This is the slowest internet connection in the world. It took me five minutes just to get google to load. For serious.

Right! Host family stuffs! (Jamaa wangu means my family.)

My Kenya mom picked me up on Saturday. The first thing she said to me after "I'm your mother" is "Short hair! My daughter is a tomboy! We cannot take you to the salon to get your hair plaited." The next thing she asked? "What denomination are you?" My Kenyan family is Catholic -- they have multiple pictures of wazungu (white person) Jesus in their nyumbani (home). I'm really excited to go to Catholic mass -- hopefully I can convince them to take me to the Kiswahili one once and the English one once. The only mass I've ever been to is the Spanish ones downtown for Cinco de Mayo in Portland.

We took two matatus (local bus/vans that are always packed with people and super uncomfortable) to get to Riruta Satellite, which is the village we are staying in. It's the suburbs, so it's fairly nice on the inside. The main road is even sort of paved.

I have two sisters and a brother: Cecilia (21), Liz (18), and Joe (12). Both my sisters are in college or university, but they live at home and commute because boarding is so expensive. My little brother goes to boarding school in the village, so even though I've passed his shule (school), I haven't met him yet. Liz likes to draw and is studying graphic design; Cecelia is studying marketing and public relations. They're both awesome fun. They were shocked when I informed them that in Portland, there are no zebras, elephants, or giraffes wandering around in the wild.

On Sunday, my family and my mama's best friend's family (and their wazungu kids Adam and Colin) visited my mama's father in hospital. He's been there for about three weeks, and my mama explained yesterday that he had to have surgery to remove a tumour, but the doctors aren't sure if he has cancer or not... anyhoo. After that we went to the Arboretum. It rained. We were riding in the back of a pickup to get there and back, so we got a little damp, but not too bad. There is a drought here, so water is pretty scarce. It rained on Sunday night, so the walk to school on Monday morning was verrrrry muddy. My mama packed me a lunch and walked me to school, which was just about like being nine again, and we had to take an alternative route because the shortcuts were flooded.

So, since I'm sure everyone's curious about the bathroom situation: We do not have western style facilities in my nyumbani. Anything involving water in the bathroom centers around one shared drain. The toilet is like the traditional Japanese ones -- that is, it's a ceramic trough that sits in the floor, and you sort of squat over it. To flush, you pour a bucket of water down it. For showering, you bring in a big bucket of hot water, and just sort of splash yourself and hope the majority of the water makes its way to the loo. It's efficient and it works, so no complaints here.

My host family was excited to find out that I'm not actually a vegetarian like they'd been told. My baba (father) was particularly excited, because he's a "carnivorous." He told me he would bring a live chicken home on Monday for dinner and that I could help him slaughter it. Normally they slaughter a goat to honour a guest their first day. Fortunately, he was kidding about having me help or indeed the chicken being alive. I actually didn't see the chicken at all until it was in my bowl. Whew.

When I was doing my Swahili homework last night, I found out by asking mama wangu (my mother) that there is a traditional Kikuyu dish called Mokimo. My jamaa (family) thought it was really funny that I have a dog nicknamed Moki Mo.

Everyone I meet that I introduce myself to feels the need to exclaim excitedly that my name is Swahili, did you know?! The answer is yes. Yes, I am quite aware. It means life. In Swahili. I've taken to introducing myself by saying, "Jina langu ni Maisha. Dyio, jina langu ni kiswahili." (My name is Maisha. Yes, my name is Swahili.) Last night watching the Swahili news I heard my name about seven times. It's surreal. I also found out from mama wangu that Maisha is a fairly common name here, and also that it's used in HIV/AIDS campaign signs.

My family is very interested in Obama, and I assured them that not only is almost everyone from LC voting for Obama, but so is most of my family. Baba wangu said something like "Obama speaks cooler. Like if you closed your eyes and had no idea what he looked like, just listening, you'd say 'Ah! This candidate has the right ideas!' His voice is stronger." My host dad is full of cute liberal sentiments, like "It does not matter that we are different religions. We all believe in something bigger than us, and it's the same thing, only the details are different." On my first day, mama wangu told me "You will see by the end that it does not matter who we are or where we live, that I am Kenyan and you are American -- we are all just people." My host father also told me, "Don't worry about doing things right or doing things wrong. Just do what is comfortable and it will be okay." That really made me feel a lot better about not knowing how to do everything right.

My host family is excited to meet my American mother and father when they come to visit, and this morning mama wangu told me that anytime I stay in Kenya, I know I have a home. Whenever, wherever, I am welcome back.

I'm on my lunch break right now, and it's about time to head back to school for history class to start. The cybercafe costs about a little over a penny a minute USD, which isn't too shabby! I just wish it were faster.

Day 4ish

Swahili lessons are intense -- almost four hours a day right after breakfast. I'd like to keep learning Swahili because it's such a logical (and phonetic!) language. Except it has noun classes, which we won't be delving into much, but which look icky.

Two nights ago we all went out for Indian food. The power went out after we had ordered (I bet everyone will write about this in their blogs), so we all got a candelit dinner. (The power did come back on as we were serving ourselves from the buffet bar.) Last night we went out for Ethiopian food (except for Autrey, who was sleeping off jetlag still).

I've got to walk to the Ya Ya mall today after history class to buy notecards so I can make Swahili flashcards. You wouldn't believe how much vocab we've gotten in three days of classes. I'm also on a quest for eyedroppers so I can actually use my Aqua Mira (water treatment stuff), which didn't come with its own eyedropper.

There is a cat and one kitten here that hang out in pretty much one spot all the time. We like to play with them between class. Photos later.

Tomorrow we meet our homestay families. I'm kinda nervous! But excited too.

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!