Early Parting Gifts

Thursday night, one of Melissa's friends from orientation (and a fellow Canadian) stayed the night to get picked up for their safari the next morning. Charlene was teaching in Maasailand, but she was the only volunteer in the village and staying with a father who doesn't speak English and his three sons. From her stories, it sounds like a complete culture shock with no running water and no electricity. The toilet is outside, and once she went outside at night to find the big bull standing in front o the door. Also, the middle son caught a dik dik (like a small deer) with his bare hands in the garden and then killed it to have for supper later in the week. She also showed me a bruise the size of my palm from accidentally getting thrown back against a hook on the outside of the bus this morning. Before her and Melissa went on their tour of Kibera, they went to a medical clinic to have the scrape washed out and to get some antibiotics. Later that night, they told stories of their experiences as social workers, and it's so difficult to imagine the traumatizing situations of incest and abuse they described occurring in modern society. They woke up around 6:15am, but I barely heard them.

Friday was my third to last day off work, and wen I walked to work, it seemed more people than usual said hi to me. One of them was my neighbor Sharon, but I was disheartened to see her stumble away after she waved to me, still drunk at 9am. I hoped her kids were at least being cared for. The weather was very beautiful as the sun had come out early, and I smiled when the men called out to me. I asked Josephine later what "Wanjiko" and "Wanjira" meant as they seemed to be using that to get my attention instead of the expected mzungu, and she said they were Kikuyu women's names, and I kind of liked the idea of them giving me a name instead of just yelling "white person." Of course, I've still gotten the occasional "Hey white girl, f*ck you," but those have been rare in comparison. My morning was spent at the Shalom House IT Center working on he Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund application as Josephine had a meeting to attend. The power cut out for ten minutes in the to and a half hours that I was there, but I managed to get a large portion completed. Josephine came back around 12:15pm and brought be a kebab as a snack, but we didn't leave until we argued with the guy running the place for trying to overcharge us. After winning our case, we walked to Dagoretti corner to catch a matatu to the Riruta clinic in Kawangare. The Tunza Family Planning tent was still there from earlier, but there were far less people crammed into the hallways. We were told to wait in the nurses office, and during the 40 minutes that were sitting there, I learned that there were no doctors at the clinic. There was a team of 8 or so nurses and three 'clinical officers' that function like physician assistants or nurse practitioners. They handle all TB diagnosing and medication, all ARVs for HIV patients, all pre-natal and post-natal care, and any minor illnesses. Only things requiring a specialist are referred to doctors in the hospital. While Josephine assured me this was a small clinic, I believe they saw upwards of 1,000 patients a week. After waiting for an unreasonably long time and seeing the very unhelpful clinic manager, we staked out in the hallway to try and catch the woman we had talked to earlier. She hadn't written the letter, and apparently couldn't tell anyone to tell us that before we waited for so long. She was upset that the DASCO office hadn't just accepted her stamp, and wanted to send us elsewhere if another stamp with a handwritten message didn't work. I know they have at least one computer there and it would've taken five minutes to do, but Josephine agreed to come back on Monday (thankfully I'll be at the school). We went then to the marketplace nearby to look for a specific gift I was looking for. There was no luck with the shirt, but I enjoyed looking at the endless piles of other goods and crowds of people. It was like Black Friday at American malls, but with the smell of roasting corn and women selling ice cream from hand coolers and men shouting out prices with surprising lung capacity. This is where all the second-hand clothes donated from affluent countries end up, and I saw a Tampa Bay Buccaneers shirt among the purses and underwear and dvds. Josephine offered to take me to another place along Ngong road where she was sure they had what I was looking for, and we took a matatu to the area called Adams Arcade. They did indeed have exactly what I wanted, and she even negotiated be a 100Ksh discount. I thanked her for her help, and we got on a bus to go back to the office. We hadn't driven far, though, when a motorcycle cop walked up to our bus at a stop and had the driver get out of the car. From what I gathered, the cop took the keys to the bus and drove off, but I could still hear the engine running beneath us. The driver and conductor then disappeared so no one could ask for a refund, and we walked the rest off the way back. When we got to the office around 3pm, Elosy was waiting for us and we took the slightly cooled of tea Josephine had brought that morning. They had an early surprise for me though, and presented me with a black and green wrap-around bangle that they had made for me and two beaded AIDS ribbon pins. If that wasn't enough, they then gave me my own kanga (the traditional colorful wrap skirts) that had bright orange and pink flowers and the Swahili proverb that translated to "Mother is a part of the family." I thanked them both profusely, and said that knowing I helped them was reward enough, but they insisted they couldn't have done the proposals without me (or without paying someone a good deal of money to help). Their kindness was overwhelming, and I'm really glad they agreed to let me take them out to lunch on Tuesday. On the way home, I received my second marriage proposal of the month. I learned early on that saying you're married wards off most unwelcome attention, but this man was persistent even with me lying about having a husband back in America. I declined his offer enough for him to get the point finally, and we parted amicably. I didn't get to eat lunch until after four, and then I started sorting my clothes into piles of what I was taking back home and what I was leaving here until Patrick came over. While I didn't give him chocolate as he asked, I decided to give him one of the smaller frisbees I'd brought, and we went out into the concrete courtyard to play. We were joined by two boys slightly older than Patrick and two older girls who also lived in the apartment building. I tried to teach them the proper grip for a backhand, but the little boys preferred to just turn around and hurl it like a discus. We all had fun, and I got to practice my throws a bit for the first time in over a month. A little before 7pm, I gathered Patrick and the disc to go in for dinner, but a few minutes later the others were knocking at the door asking to borrow the frisbee. Instead, I gave the girl who seemed the most interested her own, and she clutched in in disbelief before thanking me and running off. Storm Over Paradise was as scandalous as ever with some new murder plot on Imar and the ghost of the dead brother showing up. I went to bed late, knowing I didn't have much I needed to do in my last weekend here.

This morning I slept in until 9am, and then washed the clothes that I'd worn this week, but were planning to donate. Jeans are very tough to wash by hand because the fabric rubs at your knuckles more than usual, and your hands tun a bright shade of pink after you've rung them out. Doing the laundry wasn't unpleasant though, because I could smell the chapatti was making in the next room and she had the radio turned to some upbeat African religious music station. When everything was hung outside to dry, I had a lunch of leftovers and then started my walk to the cybercafe. The weather this afternoon is like those perfect days in December when everyone lays out and tans while studying for finals and you laugh at your friends up north who are freezing. I decided I'm going to make my much-loved Hummingbird cake for Margaret and Maggie before I leave, and I'm going to get some of the ingredients at Nakumatt later this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'm keeping my promise to go to church in the morning, and then I'm going to the Maasai market at the YaYa centre in the afternoon. I still have a few things I need to get people before I leave on Friday. See you all soon! Much love :)