I Just Want to Sleep

September 2, 2009

Today I woke up late after a long night of little sleep. I never realized the role my internal clock plays. Even though I had barely slept the night before, I woke up at 2am and could not fall asleep until 6am (7pm to 11pm EST). After waking, I ate breakfast. My host mother, Mama Monica, took me to downtown Nairobi, which is about 15 minutes from our apartment. We went to a cyber café. While she ran errands, I spent 50 minutes online. I paid 50 shillings, which is about 70 cents - it was quite a bargain. After that, we walked around a lot and toured Nairobi, as I said before, I saw so many people. We went to a java café that resembled American cafes and I had a coke from an actual glass bottle. There were a high percentage of Americans there, which I thought was funny as it was the most American thing I saw all day. Then we took a bus to Toy Market in Kibera. Apparently, it is the biggest slum in Africa. Mama Monica bought spinach – four quart bags for less than a dollar. I met her cousin and we waited for a bus back to downtown. There are few rules for the road, basically only that people are supposed to drive on the left. The streets are packed with people, buses and mutatus. Pedestrian crossings are called zebra crossings, although no one uses them. Pedestrians cross anywhere.

Mutatus are vans or small buses that take people around Nairobi and suburbs. They generally cost 20 shillings, or 30 cents, per ride, but during peak times they can cost more. Mutatus are operated by three people: the driver (although he may seem reckless, it must take a lot of skill to drive in the madness of thousands of people and oversized vehicles), the solicitor (yells at people to get on the mutatu, signals to the driver to stop and go by hitting the side of the van, jumps on an off while it is moving, opens and closes the door, and collects money) and the mobster in the back (he sits silently and collects large bills from the solicitor to keep them safe). It was very interesting to ride these. Today I got little attention from the Kenyans, probably because I was with my hostmom and she held my hand most of the way. I was only spoken to when I hit my head while exiting a mutatu (a very hard task – people are crammed like sardines). The “solicitor” asked if I was ok.

We came home and it was time for me to bathe. I should probably mention that we don’t have running water. There is a shortage and no water comes out of the tap. Mama Monica has collected water and she boils it for meals and pours it into the toilet tank. There is also a shortage of electricity. The government turns off the electricity in the suburbs during the day, but most of the houses have wells, so they have water. Since we are close to the city, our city water is shut off, but we have electricity since the government does not turn off the city electricity to protect businesses. So when it was time for me to bathe, Mama Monica heated up some water and put it in a bucket in the shower. She asked, “Do you know what to do?” I said, “No.” I was to take a cup and pour the water over me. I was freezing. And at this point I am so grateful I cut off my hair. If I hadn’t I would being cutting it off right now. It is very hard to control the water, while trying to conserve it, and trying to get shampoo out of your hair with one hand. The excess water went into the toilet tank. Also, I cannot for the life of me flush the toilet. It is a sting hanging from the tank and you have to pull it really hard. It’s getting embarrassing to have my host family flush for me.

I read my orientation packet as Mama prepared dinner. We watched “Tyra,” the news in Swahili, and “Don’t forget the lyrics.” If you remember it, it was shown in the U.S. a few years ago and its basically “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” with lyrics. It’s hosted by Wayne Brady. We ate dinner of beef, rice and spinach. I gave Mama Monica and Chippa my presents. I brought five of my pottery pieces, all of which survived, Michigan jam and Saline (my hometown) memorabilia. Mama Monica went to bed and I watched Chippa play with Photoshop on his Mac while watching “Lipstick Jungle.”

My very Kenyan day ended with a very American night.