-in town, there are two shops that are brick on the outside and from top to bottom painted with the red Celtel logo on it, which is my cell phone service here in Africa. So I go in to buy the Celtel card to charge my phone. “we don’t have any” they say. How ironic.
-kids love to see you, a white person. They giggle when you wave, but then if you reach out to shake their hand they jump back like you are going to bite them! This is so funny to me. The other day I was resting on a rock when some girls walked by on their way to school at 6:15am or so. They laughed and giggled as I waved, of course. Shortly after I got up to begin running again. They were ahead of me and when they turned around and saw me, they took off running. (as if I was chasing them or something!) Eventually I caught up and they had stopped running. As I ran by I waved again, and this time stuck out my tongue and made some sort of a face, at which they burst into laughter. I have decided that silly faces is a is a separate language in itself that everyone can understand, and I am quite fluent in it. This is now my main mode of communication with children.
-this morning we had no power, and I was in desperate need of a shower. So I took three meter-high wooden candleholders and placed them in the bathroom. I put a pot of water on the gas burner to heat some water and proceeded to “shower”. This mean I dumped the hot water into the water basin, about a foot deep and 18 inches across, and then first washed my hair upside down under a faucet of cold water first, saving the precious hot water for the rest of me. Then I stand in this little bucket and pour water on myself. Not quite a candlelit bubble bath, but I smiled just the same.
-We pray for rain. Not because our lawns aren’t green enough, but because when it doesn’t rain we actually don’t have water. Last week we had to buy it from a town three hours away. It also gets so dusty you have to close your eyes when the wind picks up in the town.
-there are two types of sandals here. One is a flip flop, that looks like it is just cut out of a piece of rubber, in all sorts of colors. The other is a more soft plastic slip on sandal, that looks like what Crocs would be if they made sandals. They also come in many colors. That is it.
-there are shoe shiners and repairers in town. It is always men sewing soles onto shoes, and men getting their shoes shined. This makes no sense to me, considering everywhere you go is red dirt and dust, and shoes are always, always dirty.
-I have never seen a man carrying the big jugs of water or bundles of sticks on their backs, only women and children. I have seen one man holding a baby.
-All kids wear uniforms. You can tell which school they belong to by the colors. Most of them also carry a jug of milk to school with them, and then at lunch you can see the kids eating some sort of maize mush out of reused plastic containers.
-Often a mother carrying a baby on her back will stop and turn her back to me so the baby can get a real live look at a Mzungu.
-The air here always smells like the color green, fresh and sweet-always with the slightest hint of something burning, and a touch of cattle.
-Last week we went to Lake Bogoria hotel to eat dinner and on the way back our van was over heating, so we had to stop to find some water. This apparently turned into a town event because soon there was people all around to talk to us-not help or figure out the problem, just to talk and laugh because we are all Caucasian and Asian. Ha. I used my language skills in silly faces again.
-Everytime I go to town I am asked for money by someone. Often a man comes up to me and will start talking, and I always just think they want to chat. But never once have I not been asked for something. It usually goes like this: “Oh, you are from America? I would like to go to America.” “yes, it is a nice place,” I say. “I need to have a sponsor to get money to go.” “yes, it would be very expensive,” I reply. “Kenya is poor, I make very little. I need to have money.” “Yes, that is true. I don’t have any money.” “Maybe you have a friend in America that does that can sponsor me” “Pole sana, (I’m sorry)”, I say, “my friends don’t money either.” Sometimes I like to throw in: “today I have already been asked to buy two people lunch, and also been asked for a letter to get a visa, and also been told of so-and-so’s son who want to go to college in America, and also been asked to sponsor someone else, and once again, I don’t have any money.” At this point…they suddenly, for some reason, are no longer interested in me and leave.
-I have also been asked for my rings, I mean I have three, why can’t I just give him one? Is my skin not only white, but covered in dollar signs?
Each day I seem to learn more about the culture, it is so good to know. :)
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