The situation has necessitated a habit of very early nights. I'm in bed by 8:30 regularly, so the 5am starts are not so harrowing. This is not too difficult since rolling black outs tend to hit our house immediately after dinner, and the lack of either electricity or natural light makes it difficult to stay awake past a single chapter of Harry Potter by the fire in the living room. Being up early is also a nice way to enjoy the day before it gets too stifling, by having a hot cup of tea on the veranda of my room, watching the sunrise, and reading a book, before getting up to take an icy shower and get ready for work. When I come downstairs, Rosemary has prepared some sliced fruit, toast and tea for my breakfast, before she headed to work herself.
My walk to work is very much a circus. About 20 minutes from door to door, I walk directly through the heart of town and the busy market just as proprietors are beginning to open their stalls and hawk their wares. All along the main road into town is a legion of young men with bicycles, or "boda bodas", offering rides for 30 shillings on the small padded seat on the back of their bike. People selling fruit, secondhand clothes, newspapers, used books, padlocks, power converters, postcards, counterfeit handbags, shoes, sunglasses, candy bars and bottles of honey all begin shouting at me with the same, ubiquitous phrase:
"Mzungu!"
Pronounced (mmm-zoon-goo!), this is the Kiswahili word for white person. It's a bit like an African version of "gringo", except said with much more endearment. Cute at first, it grows old pretty quickly. It's constant - nearly every person I pass on the street at any time shouts "Mzungu!" at me to try to get my attention. Even the little children on the street, many of whom have never seen a white person, greet me that way. It's usually accompanied by "Howaru!", an attempt at engaging me in English that has become like the sound of a whiny mosquito in my ear. The boda boda drivers will be particularly aggressive, adding "Hallo Madam! You come ride with me? Come let me show you!" sometimes following me for some meters before letting me go unmolested. For a while I embraced the sounds of Nakuru, but I do tire of the constant heckling, occasional wolf whistles and interminable shouting, so now I walk to work with the headphones in, listening to Irish lessons, just to make life that much more incongruous.
I'm at work by 8, although the rest of the office gets in at 7:30. I'm told that's genuinely unheard of in Kenya - most offices convene somewhere between 9 and 10am, and there's very little work done during the day, unless absolutely necessary, and much drinking of tea. This office is different, I think because it is a start-up, and also because it's run by a group of extremely ambitious men with big dreams to take their business national, or even international. I've tried not to get too caught up in that - I am, after all, on something of a vacation from 16 hour work days, and I'm also here purely as a volunteer. But it's hard to not feel guilty about arriving late and leaving early, so I've still been working more hours than I would like. Jaime says I'm a workaholic. I've never been called that before in my life.
I work in an office building in the center of town, sparsely decorated, with linoleum floors and bare plaster walls. There are several other microfinance agencies in the building, as well as local offices of political parties, hair salons, doctors offices, and small cafes. I walk up three floors of wildly uneven stairs to get to the Imara offices. Here's something I bet you didn't know - when you are walking up stairs, your body automatically adjusts to the height of the stairs in order that, after the first couple of steps, you are able to look up and keep walking without tripping on the stairs. Somehow, your body just knows how high each step is, and is able to make it up any number of flights without ever having to look down again. But try this sometime when the stairs are unpredictably high, anywhere from six inches to fourteen in height. You take the first couple underfoot, looking carefully where you're stepping, and then out of habit you move into autopilot, thinking that the same size of step each time will get you safely to the top. WRONG! The next step is either so low that you inelegantly stomp when you reach it, or it's so high that you trip, arms flailing, and fall forward on your face. The Kenyans on the stairs below you begin snickering, shake their heads and under their breath mutter "Mzungu..."
Our days in the office are packed - most days we drive out to one of the nearby villages in order to market the company and recruit new loan groups, or to meet with existing groups in their own homes, to make it more convenient for them. It's a pretty old school banking model, where your loan officer actually shows up at your house to discuss the status of your loan, receive your payments, or issue new loans. It's like midwifing capitalism.
At 10am every day, Doreen, the secretary, brings everyone in the office a hot cup of chai and a warm chapati (like a thick tortilla, or pita bread). This is all we eat for the entire work day. As such, I'm usually starving here. Fruit and toast for breakfast, a pita and tea for lunch, does not a satiated Moira make. Kenya may very well be the best diet I've ever been on. One day last week I picked up two samosas (like little fried tacos) on the way home, and a chubby little kid walking home from school asked me to give him some.
Fool of a Took! Perhaps other mzungus have fallen for this ploy in the past, but I should hope anyone with some sense would recognize I am not one to share food with others, much less a chubby kid. Kenya will not take that from me.
On a good day I leave work around 3; on a long day we don't get back to Nakuru town until 6:30. If I have time in the afternoon, I go to the gym at the Merica Hotel (where I got a month-long membership for only $40), lounge by the pool, or go to Cafe Guava (free internet!) and drink pina colada milkshakes and eat more samosas. There's no chance of taking a nap (to my great consternation) because both rooster and barking dog like to foil those desires every afternoon, so I've taken to keeping myself awake all day (ALL - DAY) and then sleeping hard at night. Maybe this is a more sensible approach anyway? What in the world will happen when I have children? I really hope that they will have the good sense to just take care of themselves.
When I'm home for dinner, Mary, the maid at Rosemary's house, greets me excitedly and pulls me by the arm into the dining room, where she's prepared a sizzling feast every night. Mashed pumpkin and potatoes, boiled cabbage with carrots, lentils in tomato sauce, spiced ground beef, spaghetti noodles, and some roast chicken! Famished as I've been during the day, I gorge myself at the dining room table with Jaime and Rosemary, quietly absorbing their never ending banter about the planetary scourge that is what we call "men." I've never met two more bitter women in my life - their complaints about the slights that have befallen them from various males are unceasing, as is their bizarre swapping of fairly risque stories that are nevertheless most inappropriate at the dinner table. I usually giggle politely at these, but I'm not yet as far into spinsterhood to condone the blanket condemnation of all males.
I find it difficult to keep my eyes open all the way through dinner, and in order to be polite I usually stick around for about an hour after my plate is clean (though to be fair, that occurs about 45 seconds after my plate is full, so my patience wanes and then I am forced - FORCED! - to take seconds or thirds). When I can finally find a nice break in the conversation, I run upstairs to take another icy shower, rinse off all the dirt that has accumulated on me throughout the day, retreat to my room, and collapse into oblivion before either of the other girls have even left the table.
Last weekend, I took my first safari. I was picked up Friday afternoon by what would be my private chauffeur for the weekend to go to Lake Naivasha. The private driver business is weird, but Rosemary assures me that it's generally how one gets to place to place. It would be cheaper, of course, if I split this transportation with Jaime, but as previously mentioned, I'm trying to avoid that particular arrangement (though she is getting better). And so it was that I was in a car all weekend with Steve, the guy who picked me up at the airport, who, after not long together in the car, began what has become a tiresome and all-to-familiar barrage of would-be compliments.
"How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-four."
"Oh! You are twenty-four? I am thirty-one. May I confess something?"
"No, I'd prefer you didn't."
"You do not look like you are twenty-four! You look VERY old!"
Sigh. Well-meaning? Perhaps. Irritating? Indeed. It continues:
"Please, you should take off your sunglasses."
"Why?"
"Because your eyes are so beautiful, I must behold them again."
Silence.
"Please, you will take off your sunglasses."
Silence.
"You are very quiet today! Will you tell me about your problems?"
Withering stare. More silence.
Observation #1 about Kenyans: body language counts for nothing. I have noticed this in a multitude of situations, starting with the women in loan groups whose facial expressions are completely impassive throughout a meeting and during my "business seminars," but who later tell James that they loved me and want me to come back to visit them and could I please stay longer to have some chai? There is no communication done by physical expression here, and therefore my attempts to quietly shun the advances of Kenyan men go largely unnoticed, because I'm neither pushing them nor aggressively yelling for them to leave me alone. Only these latter two options, apparently, count for something.
I simply stopped responding at all to Steve's incessant chatter, although that didn't halt it, until we got to Lake Naivasha and I was allowed to disembark, alone, for my Hippo Safari.
HIPPO. SAFARI. Enough said?
I saw so many hippos! And I got so close to them I could hear them breathing! I know that they could sense one of their own, because they would swim close to our boat and wiggle their ears at me. None of the other boats received such attentions from the hippos. The boat then took us to Crescent Island, the only wildlife preserve in Kenya where you can walk around with the animals (there are no predators, only hyenas, who daren't approach humans in broad daylight.) I was escorted there by an older man with teeth like Marvin, except the two remaining were entirely brown and rotted. He started our tour by joking around with me:
"Now, most of the animals here are very gentle, but I must warn you - if you see a lion, just try to run faster than him!"
I laughed - "But I don't have to be faster than the lion - I only have to be faster than you!"
He stopped in his tracks and looked at me, incredulously. "You think you are faster than a Kenyan?" he asked.
I shut up.
The walking safari was absolutely amazing - no lions, of course, but giraffes, zebras, water buffalo, wildebeest (Kenyans call them "wild beasts", which I much prefer to the Dutch variant) and waterbuck. Combined with the hippos, this was probably the highlight of the trip so far.
I was annoyed to have to return to Steve, who made obnoxious comments about being so happy to see me smiling again, he was so afraid that I was sad before and now my smiling brightens his day. My smile dissipated. He drove me to my hotel, which I had foolishly chosen based on rave reviews and a relatively decent price, but which turned out to be a full hour away from Lake Navaisha and very isolated. It was anyway a very nice hotel, I had my own private cabin overlooking the Rift Valley, a comfortable king sized bed and a delicious dinner at the restaurant that night. Most importantly, I had a night away from Jaime, Steve, and anyone else I knew, and I got to return to the sanctuary of sitting by myself at a restaurant, quietly enjoying the scene of chattering French tourists and sipping my ice water.
I went horseback riding in the morning, although it was mostly a disappointment - after seeing a single hippo, from a distance, trudging home towards the lake from a night of cool grazing, there was no other wildlife to be seen, and we walked slowly on old dirt roads around abandoned campsites. At least it was only $25 - I am thankful for the fact that everything in Kenya is so absurdly cheap. It was a let down to leave the hotel and be picked up again by Steve, though he was more subdued on Saturday, especially after we got a flat tire on the road back to Naivasha. It took him close to an hour to change it, so I said a quiet prayer of thanks to Apple and Amazon and relaxed with some ceili music and some James Joyce. By the time he finally got the tire fixed it was afternoon and I was starving (a shock, to be sure), so we stopped in town for some lunch before driving on to Hell's Gorge.
Three samosas and two beef kebabs later, I was ready to be more cordial to Steve, who had after all just provided several hours of hard labor towards ensuring the reliable functioning of my designated transport, so I chatted pleasantly with him to Hell's Gate. The road there was long, winding, and dusty, with zebras standing as sentries on either side of the road, close enough that I could reach my hand out the window and pet their noses. The hike in the gorge was only about an hour, but I admit it was incredible and worth the trek; the entire canyon is made of volcanic rock and limestone, with crazy markings where the rain carves deeper and deeper into the sediment every year.
By the end of the hike I was pretty sunburned, tired, dirty, and seriously ready to be homebound. Steve dutifully drove me home to Rosemary's, I tipped him well, and then escaped into the cool house for a quick shower. I met up with Jaime and we both headed over to meet Rosemary for a dinner out at a "fancy" restaurant called Garden Villa. Fancy it was not, but awesome it most certainly was. This place was exactly how I imagine an African restaurant - open-air, with walls, tables and chairs made of large sticks bundled together, a few neon signs advertising Tusker and other local beers, and a stage with live music from local African bands. We ordered the Nyama Choma, the local specialty, and quite possibly the national dish of Kenya - a giant carcass of barbecued goat.
It was amazing. I've never tasted anything like it. Goat, potatoes, and sliced tomatoes, washed down with a cold Tusker, in a run down shack posing as a restaurant, listening to the sounds of tribal African beats. Heaven.
But the weekend didn't end there! At 6:30 the next morning, Jaime and I were picked up (again by Steve) for a sunrise safari at Lake Nakuru, just on the outskirts of town. No hippos this time, but early morning was the perfect time to see the rhinos, giraffes and baboons up grazing in the fields, and the famous flocks of wild pink flamingos basking in the water.
After our game drive, Steve drove us up to the equator, about 40km north of Nakuru, and we were treated to a demonstration of the Coriolis effect (where the water spins opposite directions on opposite sides of the equator) and then heckled by sellers of curios. Jaime again fell prey to these scavengers, but I have long since stopped buying any souvenirs here for the simple reason that I hate buying something when I feel obligated by the seller. We returned home and had a quiet afternoon of gym, reading and catching up on emails.
Monday night was Rosemary's birthday, AND it was Valentine's Day! I was rabidly curious to see how Kenyans celebrate the Hallmark Holiday, so Jaime and I decided to take Rosemary out to a really fancy dinner. We bought her a cake at Cafe Guava ("You want this cake to be done in ONE DAY?! But it is impossible! No one can bake a cake in one day!"), which came to us in the evening stale and nearly inedible, and all three of us went to Gilani's Restaurant, the only place in town that really passes as "nice." The place was full of couples, and the three of us girls rejoiced in giggling under our breath as we tried to imagine what each couple was talking about - or not talking, as was the case with an extremely bored-looking couple in the corner, with the woman texting on her phone and the man sitting back, arms-crossed. Rosemary knows all the gossip, so she was able to tell us the back story on each couple - "That girl there, she comes from a very rich family, and was born in England. But she got pregnant last year, and now she is married to that guy - but he is not the father!" Many glasses of wine later, we were all laughing about previous bad relationships, and you can only imagine the level of rancor the holiday inspired from the man-hating twosome at my table.
It has been another insane week at work - yesterday was a full day trip to Molo, an hour and a half from Nakuru, where we met with two large groups of nearly forty members each. After the meeting, and my bizarre and now rambling "business" speech, the women all jostled around asking James and Peter (another loan officer) if they could get pictures taken with me. Soon the entire group was huddling around me and James was directing them to kneel in rows so they could all fit. They were all touching my hair and talking to me in Kitaba (another local language), according to James telling me that I was the first white person they had ever seen. After a series of photos, all of the women with children started bringing their kids to me. They wanted me to kiss them for good luck - like a politician! Many of the little kids were so fascinated to see a white person that they couldn't stop staring, hypnotized by what people here have been calling my "face like ivory - hair like lion." The mothers would bring the little children up to have a picture with me, but then each would, in turn, panic at being brought closer, burst into tears and only barely stand long enough for the photo before wrangling free of their mother's grasp. Apparently, I'm like Chuck E. Cheese.
Looking ahead to more days in the crazy circus that is Kenya - this weekend I'm going (with Jaime, as it were) to Mount Kenya, the tallest peak in the country, and will have plenty more stories to report by then I'm sure!
