Market Day

Tuesday, October 16

The Maasai market every Tuesday is so much fun, but it takes a lot out of you and I’m always come home Tuesday afternoons exhausted and completely filthy from sun and dust. I get kind of annoyed with myself when I think about some of the stuff I bought sometimes because I’m not always sure whether I could’ve gotten a better price for something. I’m getting a lot better at being firmer, but I can definitely do better. One has to get into this whole culture of what bargaining is, because there are so many theatrics involved in it, there is a balance between being nice and not getting ripped off, because a lot of the vendors see your skin color and try their hardest to rip you off if they can get you to fall for it. And it’s my fault for being stupid if I don’t know any better. I’ve always got to put on my firm bargaining face and frame of mind before I go into the market. Some of the vendors are super cool though and even though they know I don’t always want to buy anything from them, they just like chatting for awhile. These are the ones I like to hang out with.
Usually whenever I’m out traveling, I’m always eager to talk to anyone who is willing to talk. I love smiling at people getting into good conversations with strangers wherever I go. But here, I find myself being much more purposely reserved and avoiding eye contact when I’m walking and such. Many times, I feel like everyone who comes to talk to me always wants something. They’ll talk to me for awhile and seem nice and great, and then they always ask me for something-to pay for their school fees, to help them get a visa to the US, for my phone number-Kenyan men are really bold! I have to be so cold sometimes and this is so different from what I’m used to-making eye contact and smiling at people, just sharing a smile or moment’s connection with anyone, it’s hard to reach out to anyone because I’m the obvious visitor here.

Sunset in the city

Monday, October 15
6:15 pm, nearly dusk

I’m in my great sitting place just enjoying the breath of it all, something I do about every other day. This is the best place to watch night descend on the city. I love that here I have the kind of time to really enjoy things like this. I got home and climbed straight up here without going to my room first, so it isn’t really like I’ve arrived home yet even though I’m sitting on top of my building.

I look down and see the busy evening traffic, the cars lined up waiting for the light to change on Nyerere Road. People are walking below me across the way by the park, home from work, home from school. Its busy below, yet I am separated from it all in my own little world. I am up about 5 or 6 stories with my feet dangling over the edge of the landing where all the building’s satellite dishes reside. I am almost even with the tops of these huge trees. Giant beautiful black and red birds glide overhead and land in the branches of the trees right in front of me. In the gap through the treetop where I’m sitting I can see the skyscrapers of the city. The evening sun has cast a brilliant orange light on them. Jackavin (or some word like that) trees are in bloom everywhere with their tiny yet vivid indigo blossoms, covering everything when they fall. A crane or a stork flaps away nearby every once in awhile. The birds are beginning to head home. Meanwhile the sky gets deeper and deeper blue while the moon begins to rise and the AON Insurance company behind me turns on its giant white neon sign. My shoulders are growing chilly and the skyscrapers in front of me no longer have their dazzling orange vibrancy. The cars down below have now cleared out and just drive by in a constant stream. The men in the street selling sim cards, car mats and snacks have gone. The streetlights down below me illuminate the darkening sidewalk. The cars still stream. The people still walk. Life goes on.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Sunday, October 14

We had a great day today, the fam and I. Kalanzo Musyoka, the 3^rd presidential candidate had his opening campaign rally today in Uhuru Park across the street. Since it was a Sunday, cousins were hanging out at the house when I wandered in in the morning. I wanted to check out the rally at some point just to see what it was like so Michelle, Chippa and I walked down there in search of ice cream. It was fun! Orange all over the place and thousands and thousands of people. It seemed a little more low-key than the Raila rally 2 weekends ago, but there were still a zillion people there. I was tempted to climb up some of the trees to see better the way that some people had done. We asked if they were still giving out T-shirts, but they said that was only in the morning. The guy said he’d get us some shirts later on though, so hopefully I have one coming! Then I had to study for my Kiswahili exam tomorrow so I headed over to Java House downtown because it’s about the only coffee house open on Sunday. I convinced Michelle and Chippa to come meet me later, insisting they would be helpful as fluent Kiswahili speakers. They didn’t seem so enthused, but must’ve been bored because they still showed up. I think they were surprised at how much fun we had. We probably stayed there 3 or 4 hours practicing Kiswahili and laughing about all kinds of stuff. Then chapati and ndengu (mashed beans and peas) for dinner, my favorite! (even though I accidentally told someone we were eating ndege which means airplane or bird, teehee) A lovely Sunday.

Happy Moi Day

Wednesday October 10

Yeah, former president Moi made a holiday for himself on his birthday, just like he named everything from streets in every town and universities and schools all after himself. We’ve been learning in political science about how the president here came to be revered and glorified as a god, his picture is required to be in every public building, you’ll get arrested for urinating in it’s presence (haha) and all the negative consequences of that, like making the president above the laws. Anyway, we get school off today! There was big debate over whether they should change it and not count it as a public holiday anymore because Moi’s legacy isn’t too admired by many, they might change it after this year.

It worked out well because Michelle’s birthday is also today so we went out last night and didn’t have to worry about waking up early in the morning for class. It was a really fun family outing-Michelle, Rhoda and Cheryl (my sisters) all went and Rachel (from K-our hostmoms are sisters, making us host cousins!), my host cousin Chippa, and Rhoda’s boyfriend. Today Rachel and Piper and I found this hotel up the road from my house where there is a pool people can pay 200 Ksh to swim in for the day. It was SO nice, and a beautiful day! (Most days here are beautiful and sunny) I think I’ll go there more often, there’s also a pool at the university that’s free, but I have to find where it is.

My mom went left this morning for Sweden for some kind of YWCA conference presentation and will be gone until the 23^rd. It’s funny that I just walked into the kitchen and thought to myself, “oh, we’ll have to cook our own food for the next two weeks. Wait, Mercy cooks all of the food” Mercy is our “housegirl.” They always refer to her by that title, even though she’s a grown woman. It’s interesting that I make that association with moms and cooking food, even though my mom here doesn’t cook any of the food.

A random observation: There are a lot of random holes in the sidewalks to watch out for as you’re walking. Lots of manhole covers are open often or just covers taken off of things I guess. Sometimes there are cones around them, but sometimes not, you just have to be careful. There’s also tons of construction all over the place, I think because Kenya is developing so rapidly.

I love palm trees. And these gigantic yellow flowers with blooms bigger than your hand in a huge archway at the university. I love all the plants here so much! I’m not missing the fall weather at home that I love so much when I’m there anymore. We’re moving into summer and wow, this weather is niiiice!

Eldoret Daytrip

Tuesday, October 9

On Saturday my mom, Michelle and a driver and I all drove to Eldoret for the day where my youngest sister, Monique, who is 15 goes to boarding school. It was long day-12 hours in the car for 3 hours spent at the school. It was so much fun though! I like riding in the car, just looking out the window and chatting. This was a really bad road though…and I thought the road to Mombasa was bad! Dad, you thought Shippy Road should have been renamed something else on our bike trip because it was so bad. Man, Shippy was smooth as ice compared to what we were driving on to Eldoret! You just had to slow down to about 5 MPH a lot to slowly drive over all the huge potholes and ruts. It’s sad that the roads are so badly taken care of, and that a trip that should take under 3 hours takes 6+ hours. It’s not like the state doesn’t have the money, it’s just mismanaged and not made a priority.

Anyhow, we got there in one piece and I got to meet Monique finally. She’s so great! She ran into the car, gave me a big hug and said “Alexandra!” when she saw me. We also met up with another sister, Cheryl who is 18 or 19 I think and goes to Moi University near Eldoret. Louis, a close family friend who also goes to Moi University also came. So now I’ve met all my siblings except for the 2 in the US. We had a really nice picnic lunch with all kinds of food! Chapati, fried chicken, pilau, beef, soda, mandazi (a little like donuts), samosas. It was amazing, we had good times eating and chatting and seeing Moni’s school-(they call her that too, Mom!) It was family visitor’s day, that’s why we came. Then a long long journey home that seemed to go on forever. We also brought Cheryl home with us because she just finished her semester so she’s home for the next 2 weeks. This is why I missed the rally in Uhuru Park on Saturday, there will be more though.

Happy birthday today, John Lennon!

Election Excitement!

Monday, October 8

One thing that has really excited me about being in Kenya is seeing all the challenges to overcome here and the way that the past few years have seen so much rapid growth. As I’ve mentioned before, Kenya gained independence from Britian in 1963 so it’s a very new country. I think it’s because of this newness, many of the Kenyans I’ve encountered have a very optimistic outlook for their country. None of them deny that the country has huge problems with poverty, tribalism, crime, corruption, effects of colonialism, etc, but all of those problems actually seem manageable with time, especially seeing how much positive development has occurred just in the 40ish years since independence. With the fervor for the elections growing more and more every day, I can see how hopeful many Kenyans feel about the future. President Moi’s 24-year presidency (dictatorship) which ended in 2002 put a damper on a lot of the political, social and economic development the country achieved after independence. But since that time, with Kibaki’s presidency so much growth has happened and I feel really excited for where the country is headed in the future. In my political science class (which is beyond excellent, by the way) we’ve had quite a number of “save-the-world discussions” as I like to call them, talking about solutions to the world’s problems. We all gave presentations last week about the ways that Kenya can overcome the colonial legacy left behind by the British and I felt so enthused by some of the answers we came up with. The world’s problems all seem so easy with discussions like that geared toward positive solutions.

Anyway, I feel really excited for the political future of this country and I hope that they continue with the track record they’ve had for the past few years. This past Saturday Raila Odinga (the candidate I’m supporting) had his rally to open his campaign in Uhuru Park, the huge park just down from my house where all kinds of events, political and otherwise, take place. (It’s funny to me as a US citizen that presidential candidates officially open their campaign only 2 months before the election, whereas in the US everything’s been heating up for awhile now and we’ve still got a year!) I unfortunately was out of town for the day with my family, but from what I heard of the rally it was fantastic. Nothing crazy happened, which was good, no riots or anything which is always the fear at these types of things in Kenya. The students who went to it said the air was really festive, cultural, celebratory and unifying. They stayed more on the outskirts of it all, which sounds like it was the more fun place anyway, where people were singing, dancing, partying, chanting and handing out all kinds of pins and orange flowers (because Raila’s party is the Orange Democratic Movement), celebrating. Right now Raila’s ahead by a lot in the polls, but all that can change really quickly (and Kibaki-his opponent and the current president-has ultimate control over when the election day is, and can do a lot to rig the elections). This is one problem with the unchecked presidential power in Kenya and something that really needs to be changed.

On the other hand, there is a lot of underhanded dirty stuff that goes on in the political realm. The health minister in Kenya is this really cool woman who speaks her mind and doesn’t really care what people are saying about her and she was sacked by the president on Saturday. The reason? She voiced her support for ODM, the president’s opposition. So much for freedom of speech. Also during the rally, the electricity in various parts of the city was turned off so that people couldn’t see the rally at home on TV…hmmm, very suspicious indeed. So the current president has a big advantage over anyone running against him because he enjoys so much unchecked power. It’s way exciting though, as you can probably tell by my lengthy descriptions of the Kenyan political scene.

Monday, October 8

I think that I am going to be a lot more participatory and vocal in classes after study abroad. This is a side effect that I hadn’t anticipated at all. It’s not that I’m completely silent in classes, but I usually am not one of the more talkative ones. Perhaps part of it has just been that I’ve been in classes now from 4-10 students so we’re all forced to participate in class discussions more. But a bigger part of the reason is that my level of confidence in everything that I do has grown immensely just in the time I’ve been here. I feel much more competent and confident about facing the world.