JAMBO and Goodbye

What a wonderful country to relax in...! Kenya feels somehow more Western, and even American, than any other African country I’ve been to – even the francophone Djibouti, which feels European at times but never American. In Kenya, it’s almost like being back in the States. Cars are everywhere, as are the resulting traffic jams; signs are in English as often as they are anything else; women stride past on the sidewalks in tank tops and big sunglasses, clutching purses that could have come from Target. The monopoly on sports jerseys that soccer and Man-United enjoy just about everywhere else is smashed here by the Lakers and the Red Sox. Even the sheep actually look just like American sheep, big white fluffy things with normal short tails! I've also seen my first frighteningly overweight locals, though perhaps it doesn't do my country well to add that to the list of similarities between this country and my own. But at times I almost forgot I was in Africa at all and felt like I was right back home!
(It probably doesn’t help that pictures of the American president are just about everywhere – even more ubiquitous in shops and hotels than the, ahem, “encouraged” official photos of Kenya’s own “Beloved President Kibaki.”)

My impression is probably also unfairly colored by the fact that I’ve spent the past couple months in countries with much less of an American cultural imprint; what I notice here is not the goat wandering along the crumbling curb but the fact that he’s right next to a parked Ford (!!!).

People: VERY friendly
Kenyans are a delight to meet, a delight to talk to, and generally just delightful. They joke easily and lightheartedly, but will treat with gravity the more serious questions you ask them about their government, the political situation, or the low tourist inflow.

Going to America is a fairly popular theme among those I spoke with, and I got my fair share of romatic green-card bids. Artificial inflation to my ego aside, the male attention has at a couple points become a little inconvenient/ uncomfortable, so I have decided to truncate my singlehood indefinitely for the remainder of the trip. I have invented a delightful, charming, and attentive boyfriend to whom I am incontrovertibly faithful. I'm taking suggestions for what to call him. Wally? Niels? I've always kind of liked the name Freidrich.


Food: Swahili-Western
I didn’t notice as much of an insulated, separate diet here as I have in previous countries; eating Western food seems to be fairly common, joined with a diet of Swahili food common to the several countries along the eastern coast. A staple of this involves either ugali or fufu, a white substance made from maize (I think), rolled into balls and dipped into delicious sauces. Influence of Southeast Asian cooking is also felt, especially along the coast with curry and rice dishes.
There is a certain culinary culture around the consumption of nyama choma, cheap roasted meat that is standard fare for good hole-in-the-wall’s or street food. There is also a return to fried
breads, with chapatti – a fried pancake, samosas, tandoor – thin flat fried bread, and doughnuts/ beignets. Nothing like the Somalian breakfast crêpe, though.
Worst thing eaten: With the texture of dry chicken, softness of leather and flavour of old fish, I now understand why crocodiles are farmed for their skin and not their flesh.
Best thing eaten: At the same restaurant that served croc, I had an absolutely delicious and delicately spiced slice of – and I hate to say it – lamb.


New Hygienic Lows:
My general day-to-day state is now regularly defined by a filthiness which, if permitted to develop to much greater complexity, could legitimately be said to be award-winning.

Thankfully, however, I have the impression that I have plateaued.

At least I hope so.


Government-directed memos I’d like to write:
To the Kenyan Roads Authority: A Friendly Suggestion
PERHAPS it would be a better use of your limited resources and time to either build or fix any of the major thoroughfares connecting the largest cities of the nation, instead of pouring both in generous abundance into the conscientious construction of triple-set speedbumps on those precious few highways on which you could actually consider going over 50 kmph.
Sincerely
A Bruised Bus Passenger

New Words Learned: I’m likely going to have to combine this section with Tanzania, but for now I’ll admit that a week in Swahili-speaking territory has not produced much in the way of Kenyan fluency. So many people speak English, I have thus far just slipped through that colonial loophole, and got by with an enthusiastic JAMBO!!!
A few others worth knowing: Karibu - welcome, Ahsante - thanks, and, if you’re me, ekisuu (Borana)/ chekitha (Akambo)/ sesefu (Central Swahili) /kwi-kwi (Southern Swahili). They all mean the same thing. A prize to whomever can guess what.
Telling Phrases: I am privy to one of those singular moments made memorable by their rarity in which Disney actually got something right. It’s true. Everyone here actually does say “Hakuna matata.” (It means – sing it with me now – No worries…)

Classic quote: David and I briefly split forces in coastal Mombasa to do various errands, meaning that I ended up wandering the old tourist-shop-lined alleyways around Fort Jesus – yes, you read that right, Fort Jesus... praise God! and pass my gun.. - on my own. Hakuna matata though, cos all the (male) shopkeepers were very chipper and welcoming. I had nothing to buy, but enjoyed wandering around the shop of three friendly dudes, until I suddenly saw this amazing little trinket that I loved. The senior shopkeeper, in pricing it, told me he would give me a lower price since I was "Kenya-kimbo", using the slang term for foreigners who live in Kenya for a long time. Confused, I asked for its English translation; the men consulted in Swahili a moment before the youngest confided to me with the air of one giving me a huge compliment, "Kimbo means cooking fat!"
My shocked face set off the other two into fits of laughter, as the speaker flustered to explain something about living in Kenya and thus consuming Kenyan cooking fat. I didn't even bother to listen, and laughed along with the others. I am a walking portrait of Kenyan cooking fat! Awesome.

Worst Experience: As David has more than once noticed, I tend to have very vivid and convincing dreams. I have occasionally even allowed their false reality to blend in illogical ways with the reality of wandering around Africa, which frankly isn't always all that different. The morning after having a very strange dream in which I was inexplicably pregnant and even more inexplicably happy about it, David and I boarded a bus that proceeded to jolt us out of our senses for the next four hours. The repeated blows to my stomach soon caused an excruciating abdominal pain, giving rise to the most horrifyingly hideous feeling that I was having an immaculate miscarriage. I felt like a murderer.
Jokes about my unlikely candidacy for the next immaculate conception aside -- pregnant women reading this: please do not take local transport in Africa.

Best Experience: Our fantastic safari in Ethiopia's rift valley wasn't enough for us, so we embarked on another short jaunt through Nakuru National Park in central Kenya for some lovely rhinoceros, antelope, giraffe, zebra, and water buffalo sightings. We were sure we'd be too late to see the hippos, though, so it was with great excitement we chanced upon one lying right by the road in a shallow creek. Our clever driver idled our tiny sedan up close and we left all the doors open to allow for a speedy retreat should the hippo notice us. We then commenced the extremely dangerous and stupid endeavor of sneaking right up to where it was so I could take a picture. I got some seriously awesome pictures of its cranky little face before a French family with at least four kids showed up a bit down the road. Wanting to share our good fortune, we waved to them, indicating extreme silence with hand motions, and eagerly beckoned them over. Comprehending instantly, they began to tip-toe their way over to where we were until there were something like ten of us creeping about within about three meters of this thousand-something-pound hippo and getting closer all the time.

Of course the inevitable happened.

The hippo noticed us, and charged out of the water with a violence remarkable for an animal with such girth. The ten of us fled for our lives back towards the sedan, independently blessing the driver for leaving the doors open. I briefly panicked about whether we could fit everyone in the car. Mostly, however, I was more preoccupied with this painful moment of truth, in which I was forced to choose - in a split second, no less! - between several extremely attractive courses of action: taking advantage of such a unique opportunity to get a close-up photo of a charging hippo - !!! - or, because I am not without a bit of a cruel sense of humour, photographing instead the hilarious scene created by the scattering troupe of spectators - French people running in every direction - the ten-year-old halfway out of the park before she slowed down enough to look back.
In the end I defaulted on both magnificent photographic opportunities, and chose instead the third option: to flee with the others and save my life. But DANG, either of those photos woulda been amazing...

Could I live here? Easily. Laidback, friendly and fun, Kenyans are the kind of people you want to surround yourself with all the time. As far as living abroad goes, though, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, and the marriage-proposal-based bids at American citizenship would probably get old. Friedrich and I would probably have to get married.