Continued House Arrest (sort of)

January 4, 2008

Time here passes slowly but it's not so bad. It's funny that I always wish to have this kind of leisure time with absolutely nothing to do but sit around and laze and read any other time but then when it's forced, it becomes a little unbearable at times. I've gotten to spend a lot of time contemplating the meaning of life and wondering why we do always have to have stuff to do to occupy ourselves. Sitting and watching people change a tire for 1 1/2 hours on the street below you is kind of interesting...but there is also a limit to the amount of interest you can get from sitting observing what's around you. Maybe I'm just not creative enough. It's not that I can't go out of the house, I can go walk around town, but it's not really that interesting because nearly everything's closed and there aren't many people around. Everyone's saying this will all die down soon and I hope they're right.

Yesterday morning saw a little bit of excitement. I was sitting up on the roof listening to the yells and stuff I could hear coming from Uhuru Park because there was supposed to be a big ODM rally there, but there was a police guard surrounding the park so I didn't really think the rally would happen-and it didn't. But anyhow, all these people came along running down the street below hollering and I heard some shots (gun?) so I started getting a little nervous and ducked down to watch and got out my camera. Soon the police came running after them with big shields and some on horses. Then after that came the journalists running behind them. The runners ran into the park and that was that. This happened maybe 3 or 4 times in the morning. We heard lots of shots of tear gas all the rest of the morning and all afternoon was quiet.

Watched some bad music videos on TV for awhile, watched Weeds, watched the news-Desmond Tutu came to mediate, but I don't think Kibaki and Raila have talked yet, played some cards with Moni. Then I realized Michelle was over at my mom's office on the internet so I went over there to find that I can surf the internet there to my heart's content

November 13, 2008

November 13, 2008

We had a great dinner last night at Haandi, what the tourbooks all call the best Indian restaurant in Africa, and I definitely agree. It’s mad expensive for Kenya, but the YWCA paid for it all because it was this meeting of all these people from all over the world meeting about the YWCA’s youth exchange program. I met people from Norway, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Kenya last night at this dinner. It was way fun, the people were pretty cool and so so so so yummy.

Our family room couch is gone L and it’s really not cozy anymore. Aunt Monica took it (Rachel’s hostmom) because she sent her couches to get recovered 2 months ago and the guy who was supposed to do it basically stole them. Long story. Anyway, so she took our couch to replace hers. Now we have to sit in the straight-backed dining room chairs to watch TV or read or anything.

Stacey and I made a really cool mini-documentary this weekend for a project on Women in the Media for Gender and Development class. (She brought a video camera) We interviewed all kinds of people on the streets of Nairobi and at the university about their perceptions of women’s portrayal in the media. It was so much fun and turned out so much better than we were expecting, the editing actually turned out really good. Plus we had some great conversations with a lot of people and might have made some new friends at the university. Making new Kenyan friends…always great in my book! And we did our presentation today and I think we blew Lilian away, she thought it was great and gave us contact info to show it to the head of the journalism department at the university because I guess she knows a lot of info about women’s role in media and media production-for our paper on the topic. It made me happy, and I expect we got a good grade..

Crossing streets in Kenya is an art. I find it quite similar to the game I used to play on my calculator in high school math class all the time called Frogger where you’re this little frog trying to cross an 8-lane highway with cars whizzing by. Yeah, that’s pretty much what Kenyan street crossing is like. You’ve gotta back up at times and dart at times and be decisive about what you’re doing and remember to look right-left-right instead of left-right-left (Kenyans drive on the left side) and wave at people, and put your hand out to block cars from hitting you and the entire road is never all clear at the same time so you just go at it lane by lane and hopefully there’s a median in the middle. No, its really not that scary, it just was the first few days.

Elevator doors in Kenya open and close so freaking fast! They always try and squish you! This has caused a few funny occurrences with me not jumping on fast enough and the doors trying to smash me and the people inside all sticking their arms and legs in the door and trying to pull me in, then us having a good laugh about it once I made it.

I think my blood is thinning like a Kenyan’s…even if its slightly cold in the mornings now, I always wear a jacket or sweater and a scarf because I get cold. It’s kind of a nice feeling though to wear warm clothes.

I am so much less aware of my race than I was even 2 weeks ago. I forget I’m white and everyone else is black a lot of times. It’s such a good feeling. Now I’ve just gotta focus on the Kiswahili learning, because that still is pretty shaky, but getting better and better all the time. My cousin Derek told me to let him know when I’m ready and he’ll teach me Sheng (Kiswa-English-slang, what the young people speak)

I like Kenyans so much!!! They’re so friendly and open and approachable in general, more than Americans are I think. And they’re never in the same kind of hurry Americans always are in, which makes them late a lot, but also willing to always help you out and nothing is ever more important than sitting and visiting. When they invite you for lunch, you know you might be there all day. I love it, we need to do that in America quite a bit more.