Traveling

I've found myself unexpectedly in Nairobi, I've actually been here for a week. Now I'm just enjoying the green, the rain, the fresh air, things that are clean, the friendly people, the cold weather, and the remotely sane traffic. It's strange how the things that you've learned to live without can really surprise you and turn out out be a real treat. For instance, I walked into the vegetable store yesterday and didn't even know what half the stuff was, then bought just about one of everything that I did recognize...I'm not real sure what I'm going to do with such an odd assortment of things...I should be back to life as usual by the end of the month!

Trip Back!!!

I am now back in the capitol, PTL. Back when I had only lived in the capitol,I always wondered why all these aid workers looked forward to spending their R&R time in this city...now that I've spent 6 weeks in the middle of nowhere desert I totally understand.

The 10 hr trip only took 9 hours b/c we were just that anxious to get back...or to get away. I thought that trips home were supposed to go by faster than trips out but this one felt like it was twice as long!

A few highlights of the trip. Saw a lot of trucks like the one driving in this picture that won't load (sorry!)....and a lot on the side of the road restacking their loads because they fell off. The road we are on is the only road from the one port to the capitol so it's 'heavily traveled' meaning that you pass a big truck about every 5 minutes. The trucks drive about 30 mph so you basically just fly past them unless someone happens to be coming the other direction. Then you slam on your brakes, get whiplash and wait. There are no speed limits and no rules on these roads so you just go and hope no one gets in your way...it's kind of liberating.

About 4 hours into it the highway closed, there were all these big rocks just laying the road. No sign, just a bunch of really big rocks. None of the cars around us looked like they really knew what was going on so we just took off into the desert behind the guy in front of us...who really needs a paved road anyways?!? After about 15 minutes of just driving through the desert parallel to the road we came to a point where there were several cars just sitting around with the hoods up. We didn't really understand what everyone was doing out there in the middle of nowhere working on their cars but there were lots of Chinese workers just standing around so we decided to drive on the road. We didn't see any other cars for a really long time but since none of the Chinese guys ran at us waving their arms we figured it was ok.

Then there were the monkeys. I have been looking forward to seeing these monkeys again for 6 weeks now. Today we went a really long ways without seeing them and I was about to give up hope when I saw the commotion up ahead. They were everywhere, even in the road, hundreds of them! I was really excited (my roommate is still making fun of how excited I was) and taking pictures. We even pulled off to the side of the road so we wouldn't be in anyone's way, not that it's a well traveled road or anything but just in case. After a few minutes we were ready to keep going but then noticed that someone else was stopped coming the other way and they were in the middle of the road. Turns out, it was 2 white people!!! The first white people I've seen in 6 weeks!! I was actually more shocked to see the foreigners than I was to see the monkeys, I mean, I expected the monkeys but I NEVER expected to see any foreigners all the way out here. When they noticed us, they were just about as surprised as we were. We waved and they waved back and then we headed off into the desert again....and laughed until we cried for 30 minutes about the fact that we just saw monkeys and white people, 2 very rare things, at the same time!!! Kind of say, I know, but it's been a loooong 6 weeks.

The last 3 hours of the trip were the longest. Coming into the capitol there is all kind of traffic but mainly the big trucks that go really slow. Since you're close to the capitol there is also lots of traffic coming the other way so you can't pass....or can you? We spent about an hour on the dirt next to the road driving past all the slow cars who wished they could be cool like us. (we weren't the only ones) It's kind of sad that you could actually drive faster on the bumpy desert dirt than you could on the holey (lots of potholes) paved road.

But probably the best part of the whole trip was getting to spend 9 hours outside of my house without being constantly stared at. There was the kid throwing rocks at the car first thing when we left this morning but we didn't let him get to us and no one else got a good look. They might could see us coming but then we were gone and all they saw was a flash of white that could have been a foreigner...ah how sad.

Malaria

Malaria is a weird thing out here. Basically every kind of sickness, no matter what the symptoms, is malaria. I've never heard of anyone who went to the doctor to get a malaria test done and the test didn't come back positive. Last week I watched two little boys run around and play swords with tree branches, laughing and having fun while they were waiting to see the doctor, then saw their runny noses and coughs get diagnosed as malaria.

It has been interesting to be out in the village doing some surveying work. When we ask the women what is the most common health problem that they have, every single one says malaria. But when you ask them if they have any mosquitoes, they say 'no, none at all'. Ask them what the symptoms of malaria are and you get interesting responses, runny nose, coughing, various stomach problems, sometimes fever, sometimes no fever. I've even been told that they have a 'special' kind of malaria out here that is totally different from the common kind and you never have a fever or any flu symptoms when you get that one.

Hmmm...now I'm no doctor but I was under the impression that malaria is ONLY transmitted through mosquitoes and that it ALWAYS includes a very high fever and flu like symptoms. I don't want to doubt the local women's wisdom on stuff like this, but malaria without the symptoms, I just don't believe it.

So now I'm wondering just who is it that decided that every sickness would be malaria. Is it the lab technicians who are too lazy to take the entire 15 minutes with the blood tests and so they just call it malaria? Or was he ever actually taught how to do a malaria test? In med school here, 50% is passing. (if anyone is wondering why I have to leave the country to do anything medically related, that's a big part) Do the people really honestly believe that they all get malaria several times a year without mosquitoes just because the lab guy says so? Malaria medicine is pretty hard core, so maybe it knocks out most sicknesses and then it looks like the person had malaria b/c they got better after the medicine. Maybe I'm just reluctant to trust any of the medical advice given in this country but I'm really skeptical of whatever system they've got going on here.

Which brings up the original issue that made me start thinking about this issue, if I actually did get malaria I would never know. I would have a blood test that came back positive no matter what, I would take the medicine that would make me feel horrible, and in the end have no idea if I actually had it or not. Lovely.

Francais?

As I'm walking down the street, people usually yell out whatever words they know in English, meaning that we get a lot of profanities and alot of 'hello' 'how are you' 'I am fine'. I usually just ignore it and let people assume that I don't speak English. After that I usually get asked if I speak French and I say no, leaving people very confused and trying to figure out what language I do speak if it's neither of those. It's kind of fun.

Yesterday we were visiting one of our friends and she changed the TV channel from an Arabic channel to this French news channel. She doesn't speak English so she just assumed that the white guy was speaking English. Let me just say that even though it was in French I totally understood what was going on, even more than I understood the Arabic station. Arabic is hard and, apparently, French isn't so hard. I guess having the same alphabet really makes the difference. Oh well, it's a little too late to be changing things around. It is kind of sad though, that after 1 year of studying Arabic and absolutely never studying French I actually understood the French news so much more than I understood the Arabic.

Guess I do speak a little French, although my answer to the question 'do you speak French' will still always be no.

Futbol

We had to go to the market yesterday to track down a plumber...any plumber...and ran into this huge crowd of men outside of the one decent hotel in town. As we were walking through this group of 100 men not one of them grabbed and there were surprisingly few crude comments made. I realized that something about this picture was off but I couldn't quite put my finger on it until we got to the other side of the group of men. That's when I realized that there was no one following us. They were all staring at the hotel doors and talking amongst themselves...weird.

We found a plumber shop and asked what was going on. That's when we found out that the really big futbol/soccer team from the capitol was in town to play one of the local teams. All those guys were sitting outside hoping to just catch a glimpse of the players.

I really wanted to go back and stand in the middle of the crowd, just for the simple sake of standing anywhere outside of the walls of my house and not being constantly harassed and stared at, but my roommate wouldn't give in, so we left.

Something strange has happened this week and I'm going to try to explain it, please don't judge me. All the sudden I want to do really mean things to people, not all people, just crude men. For instance, yesterday I was sitting in the car waiting for a friend and a guy came up to the car, pressed his forehead against the window, put his hands up to block the glare and actually started to lick the window lustfully...sick me out. I had this overwhelming urge to open the door really fast and as hard as I could, knock him over, and then apologize like I didn't see him there or something. The same thing happened later in the day. I was standing next to the road and these teenage kids rode by on bikes. They started yelling rude things from about 100 yards away and slowed down to get in a good stare as they rode by. I really just wanted to stick my foot out and kick on of their front tires as they slowly rode past so that one would fall down along with everyone behind him, then I would 'sincerely' apologize for not seeing them and stepping out so irresponsibly.

I haven't done any of those really mean things, at least not yet. Give me a few more days and I just might. I have however stomped on guys toes really hard and thrown elbows like I was startled or surprised by something, then just given them this look like 'sorry but maybe if you weren't so grabby you wouldn't be gasping for breath at the moment'. Does this mean I'm getting close to losing it?!?

Jebna

My roommate and I went to visit some of our friends in our new town. We got there about 2 pm and knew we would have to stay and eat lunch, which is usually fine with us. However, we actually only knew the dad and when we got there the dad left us in the women's room with the women of his family. That's normal and just fine, except that conversation with these girls was like pulling teeth. So the first 3 hours of the visit we spent just kind of sitting there and staring at each other.

After we ate lunch then we had to sit and drink jebna with them because that's just what you do. Jebna is a type of coffee. Basically you start with the fresh beans, roast them yourself over an open fire, then grind them with a stick or rock, then mix them in water and heat it over the open fire. Then fill your glass half with sugar and pour in the unfiltered coffee. It's really pretty gross, at least I think so, but it's what they do out here and there's no getting out of it. Anytime you visit anyone you are obligated to drink 3 cups of this stuff.

We were pretty tired of just sitting there and staring at each other but these girls just wouldn't talk and we couldn't leave until after the 2 hour jebna ordeal, so I came up with something to fix the problem. When the daughter brought out the coffee fire and table I just had a seat and told her that I was going to make the jebna...that she had never had 'white-folk' jebna and this was her chance. Since I'm the foreigner I can do weird things like this, they already think I'm strange just b/c I'm white so why not play that up?!?

So I made the jebna. I've seen it done quite a few times but never really paid attention so it didn't take long for the girl to figure out that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. She helped a lot and, in the end, it tased just like it was supposed to, absolutely disgusting!!!

At some point in the middle of all this the neighbors heard all the commotion and came over. At the end of the evening we had quite a party going on. Between me making the 'white folk' jebna and my roommate speaking the 5 words of Bedouit she knew (the local tribal language), we made for a good show. BUT, they all opened up, we talked for a long time and they just absolutely loved us.

So I guess if I wanted to sum up my time in the new city up to this point, I could say that I've spent the last 6 weeks making a fool of myself, trying anything and everything just to get these women to talk to me. The jebna was my first really successful attempt (meaning that until now I've just been looking like an idiot alot without making any progress) but now I know the secret. From now on I'm just gonna be the crazy white jebna lady!

Issues

Yesterday we were at the govt office that our NGO is partnering with and needed to do something in Arabic on the computer. After trying every other computer in the office and none of them working our friend says this:

'I guess we'll just have to wait for Ahmed, he's not at his desk'
'How long do you think he will be?'
'Maybe after one hour'
'So Ahmed left the office?
'No. He's here. He's sleeping'
'...hmmm...he's sleeping?'
'yes, but maybe he will wake up after one hour. We can wake him up if we need to but he won't be very helpful if we do.'
'um, no thanks. We wouldn't want to interrupt Ahmed's nap. We'll just come back another day'

Then we were at the bank this morning. We got there at 9am when they open and we went in at 9:30 when they actually opened. There are no lines but there is an actual rule where women get to go to the front. (I mean, how would it be possible to push your way to the front when men and women are NOT allowed to touch). However around here women don't do any of this kind of stuff for themselves so I don't think they've ever actually used that rule. After we finally pushed our way up to the front of the line to get our transfer it was 10:30 and the guys says:

'we don't have any money'
'you...don't have any money?'
'nope'
'but this is the bank, right?'
'yes, the bank'
'so if the bank doesn't have any money, what do they do?'
'we wait, maybe after one hour we will have some'
'...oh...okay'
So we waited and they brought it after about an hour. Again, people wonder how I can manage to be busy all day long and never get anything accomplished. It's things like this!

Just a few pictures. The one on top is of a typical house in the village we're working in. People sit outside all day under they shaded area and they also sleep out there. Kind of makes you wonder what's the use having the cement part of the house...at least I wonder.
Then this is the latest dust storm. We've been having about 3 a week and no rain. This one was cool b/c it came right at sunset from behind the mountains. All the storm clouds behind it were beautiful and pink (like the little one at the top) until the storm covered it up.
And these are the women we visited with today in the village. It's interesting b/c underneath their tobes (the 4 meters of material that they wrap and wrap around themselves) they MIGHT have a skirt on but they definitely do not have anything on top. Normally they just sit around with their heads covered and everything else just hanging out, even when there are men around!! When we come in they all cover their faces but still are just hanging out topless. Then when I go asked to take a picture they uncovered their faces but made sure the rest was covered? I just don't understand these cultural rules and I don't know that I will EVER be willing to fit in!!

Fridays

Around here, Fridays are like Sundays. Most people are off work and it's the day that the locals go for sermons and stuff like that. We usually also take off on Fridays, although we don't do anything at all.

I especially look forward to watching TV. Sounds dumb but on Fridays we get all the the American morning news shows in realtime (ie, ABC, CBS, etc). We also get to see Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I don't know about most people, but when I was growing up Wheel of Fortune was on every night while we were getting dinner ready. We didn't always watch but it was on in the background. Who would have thought that they would have Wheel of Fortune in the Sandbox....and that I would get so excited about watching it?!?! A year in a third world country sure does change your perspective on entertainment and a whole lot of other things.