Ndiyo, Natoka Amerika

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Goodness time has really started to fly! Now that I’m 3 weeks behind on updates, I’ll see what I can do in the next few hours…

June 9th & 10th
My first real weekend in Nairobi was full of fun little trips as well as some quality time with Laura.

Maasai Markets: Touching Is Free
The rains had started in earnest in Nairobi. Were they late? Right on time? In classic Kenyan fashion, no one could ever agree, but in any case every day of my last week started hot and sunny, clouded over by 3 or 4, and then poured rain for an hour or two in the evening. That weekend was no exception, but fortunately I got to enjoy each day without the rain. Saturday I had brunch with Laura and her brother-in-law and niece (Harper is always the cutest 18 month-old in a 100 km radius, no question) and then headed down to the Maasai market in downtown Nairobi to start shopping for the 200 items my father had requested I bring back to fill the sadly neglected and empty house on Jocelyn St. Right…

My first time at the market was akin to walking into a smorgasbord or all-you-can-eat buffet at Holiday Inn or something. There was every possible variety of beaded or carved or printed object or bracelet or wall hanging or pair of salad tongs you ever could have imagined. As a SWF (or SMF, more precisely—Single Mzungu Female), I instantly attracted a coterie of suitors who started that chant that followed me around the entire market. “Hey seesta! Seesta! To look is free, eh? Looking is free? Here, touch! TOUCH!!! TOUCHING IS FREE!!!” Ruth started laughing so hard at the look on my face, which you could approximate by smacking yourself in the back of the head with a board (optional). I started cracking up too when it became so predictable. We would finally shake off one horde of persistent merchants, have 2 seconds of peace browsing, and then whatever sleepy salesperson was sitting on the mat of wares we happened to be looking at would do a double-take at me and the start in with the, “Touching is free!!! And the price is *almost* free!” Ruth liked asking why it wasn’t just free, if it was “almost” free. They tried the, “You name a price, eh? Any price, seesta!” and she would come right back with, “One Shilling!” After much moaning, and “Seesta, you are KEELING MEE!” we would finally take off, me still in fits of giggles. It was so much fun.

We finally agreed that I would just leave her with a list of things I wanted and she would come bargain for it herself in the absence of a SMF whose very presence tended to jack the prices by 200-300%. Another example of how very generous and kind Auntie is!

Once it started raining we retreated home to Hurlingham. Ruth indulged my snacky appetite with pancakes while we watched ‘Deal Or No Deal’ (I am 100% hooked now) and then made me some traditional seasoned, cooked banana dish, which was delicious. I don’t remember now if I mentioned that one of auntie's cousins/nephews was staying with us. He is about 14 and a sweet, studious young man. He helped me learn some key Kiswahili phrases during the week that he stayed with us (‘I smell chapattis!’ ‘No, it’s not ME that is smelling like chapattis!’ ‘Thank you, but I’m married’ and ‘May I please take your picture?’) and seemed delighted to spend a week away from the extremely strict boarding school where he works his little tail off. That Saturday night, he was doing still MORE HW (he had spent most of the days during the work doing HW for hours and hours) and being distracted by the soaps that Maggie and Ruth were watching. Finally, he looked at me with big brown eyes and asked me if I would help him with his Maths.

Now, significant figures and I have a long and storied history, so the problems in and of themselves were not troubling. It was fun to teach him the concept since he is so bright and picked it all up very quickly. What was troubling was the VOLUME of work he had to do. We’re talking 30+ HW problems of the EXACT same thing over and over: please write the number 68,139 using a) one significant figure, b) two SFs, c) three SFs, and d) four SFs. He was fretting that he wouldn’t finish all of it in time to go back to school the next day. What happens if you don’t finish, I asked? Either he would get suspended and sent home to do 40x as much work as before and receive a penalty on his exams, or…wait for it…he would have to dig up a tree stump. I don’t know, but I found this so distressing! Here was this sweet, smart, curious, hard-working kid who had been so intrigued by my laptop (it had a touchpad!! He had never seen one before) and taught himself ‘Chess’ on it as well as by my iPod (‘This Is Why I’m Hot’ is his favorite song so he listened to it over and over and over…and over again) who totally charmed me, and the thought of this puny, adorable kid having to dig up a tree stump because he had taken 2 hours to learn how knights move in chess rather than figuring out .00075612398914 to 7 ½ significant figures broke my heart.

Okay enough. That was Saturday.

I know what you’re thinking. At this rate, how will she ever fill in 3 whole weeks? No worries, folks. My activity level tapered off dramatically after about June 10th….

Safari Sevens
I spent most of Sunday at a rugby tournament with Laura called Tusker Safari Sevens. She and I had both thought it would be fun to go, and so it was. Any sport where they sell beer by the six-pack has gotta have some great fan action, and sevens rugby is so fast that especially if you’ve had a Tusker or two, time just flies! We picked our way through the muddy stands to the side where you could sit about a row or two off the field. The action was fantastic, and I basked in the sun with my friend, my beer, and my camera, diligently photographing the single hottest member of every rugby side with my digital zoom at full tilt. Good times. #3 from Morocco, #8 from Zimbabwe, and #5 from Wales: we should hook up.

Tennis
As many of you know, I am not only a tennis nut but a tennis nerd. I buy DVDs of tennis matches, babble to anyone who will listen about great players and great matches, and generally wear my tennis heart on my sleeve. So to everyone that had the misfortune of seeing me during those few days of June when Roland Garros was building up to its final days and I had NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON because no one in Kenya gives a rat’s ass about Kenya, I’m really sorry. I was admittedly frantic to find out what was going on. That Sunday night, as I tried to determine whether it was Federer or Nadal who won the French Open over the course of FOUR HOURS—count them, four—and then sulked when I found out that Fed had lost to that stupid punk kid again, I remembered the lengths I had gone to throughout the week to find out what had been happening in the tourney: I had texted people to make them look up results, stayed up till 2 to watch the ticker on CNN or Al Jazeera, checked the internet everywhere I could…pathetic. Ah well. As I write this we are on Day 5 of Wimbledon. Not only am I watching the ‘Live Scoreboard’ like any faithful tennis devotee thousands of miles from tennis’s greatest Grand Slam, I am trying to figure out somewhere with satellite sports TV to check myself into next weekend for Finals. W-O-W.

Moving on. Ambitiously, let’s try:

June 11th-14th
I spent much of this week catching up on emails, paying bills, and chatting with the few of you I found on GChat thanks the Laura’s laptop and the free wireless at a neighborhood coffee shop. I also visited another Maasai Market with Ruth to shop for the best prices and goods, had a few nice dinners out—one with Laura at a fantastic ex-pat Italian restaurant and one with some Canadians who I met randomly and with whom I spent an evening swapping dumb movie quotes and eating lasagna and salad…heavenly!—that I have since dreamed about, tried to avoid the locusts that swarmed Nairobi and penetrated even the movie theater where I went to see Ocean’s 13 (loved it by the way. But do you think it’s significant that one of the 10 plagues came to Nairobi while I was there? I personally think so…yuck those things are awful), visited some wildlife parks and just missed having a nice Kenyan husband. Here are some highlights.

‘Ur the kind of lady I dream. Ur fantastic.’
In one short day in Nairobi, I garnered three proposals. After that day, I learned how to say ‘Asante, nadhani nina mimba’, which means, ‘Thank you, but I think I’m pregnant.

The first two were at the Maasai Market, where one man told me he loved me and wanted to marry me while the other just showed me with his hand motions in the air what kind of women he liked and offered to let me come home with him. The third came in the form of a note that was slipped to me while I was sitting in a booth at the wireless coffee house. Part of the note is shown above, but it was also replete with two phone numbers, some doodles, and the aforementioned proposal. Never again will I claim that I am not a lucky girl. I don’t know how I managed to resist these tempting offers, but here I am, Mom and Babbo, toute seule.

Marilyn and Flic
Two days before I left Nairobi, I rendezvoused with Marilyn at her hotel. It was so lovely to see her!! For all who are wondering, Flic was improving rapidly last I heard, having been stepped down from the ICU and de-intubated. Marilyn herself seemed to be holding up very well. Strong as a rock as always, keeping her family posted, staying with Flic as much as possible, asking the medical team lots of questions and getting thorough answers, and staying positive yet patient. I felt right at home with her again when I saw her and was so pleased to here that things were progressing in a good direction. I believe they will be flying home to Melbourne at the beginning of July. I’m sorry I won’t be able to see them again before they go, but I am 100% sure that we will all meet again and under much happier circumstances. Seeing Marilyn again brought things full circle for me after my few weeks in Nairobi and left me feeling ready to move on to another phase of my trip. If she is reading this, I would again like to say how truly happy I am to have met and connected with her, and that I wish her and her family all the best, especially in the coming months of Flic’s recovery!

Ellies and Twiga
I spent all of the day before I left Nairobi at various Nairobi wildlife parks. I can’t even describe what it felt like to touch a baby elephant for the first time or get kissed by a giraffe so I think I will just post a few pictures. (I am running out of steam now after hours and hours in this internet café!) Suffice it to say that that was one of the happiest days of my trip so far. Since then, I have fallen back on animal ogling to buoy my spirits when I am feeling down. I really think that these are some of the most glorious and graceful creatures on the planet, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill or harm them in anyway. Now that I am officially a sucker/foster mother for the elephant orphans at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, I encourage everyone to be like me and fork over money to preserve the elephants and rhinos that are being preyed upon for their valuable body parts.

www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

My orphan’s name is Lempaute. She is the littlest one and a total pistol. I am obsessed.

Okay I think I will stop here before I get into what happened when I left Nairobi. To sum it all up, I spent two lovely weeks with some really wonderful people who took great care of me and made me feel right at home. I can’t wait to go back and spend tome with all of them, though I threatened never to speak to any of them ever again if they didn’t come visit me in Voi. I finally felt more sure of myself and independent when I left, being better able to navigate the city and its suburbs but no less shocked by people’s (death-wish) driving style and the congestion of the city. There was much that I hadn’t gotten to see or experience in Nairobi, but by June 14th I was so fixated on how nervous I was to go to Voi and how little time Mkaya would have to chaperone me (only 4 days!) that I could only look forward.

On that cliffhanger, off I go for now.

Missing everyone but soaking it all in here like chicken curry on chapatis—
Miriam