Nairobi, rivaling only Guatemala City for exhaust fumes. Though I've never been to India or Indonesia. It's been a wild couchsurfing ride and I'll be glad to settle into the breezy Samaritan's Purse guesthouse tonight.
I've just been two days toggling Nairobi, a village two hours south, and a bar in the middle. I was picked up by host at the airport three hours after my arrival. He's quite a guy, never met one like him, a politician in the sense that we would not espouse at the Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics. But of course people like that are terribly interesting even if they keep you constantly on your guard.
So the first day, I went to his family village where he, his wife, and two sons have been for the past month on holiday. They also had other couchsurfers, as it provides a good platform for him to sell safaris to his guests. Or compare the experience he offers with $20 visits to Masai communities.
A "charming," "quaint" village "like the movies," without electricity, warm people who giggled and oggled at our whiteness. The green hills are lush with coffee, corn, yams, beans, bananas, cows, and goats. The wife and sister-in-law spent all their day making us organ stew in a smoky kitchen house. After a moment of standoffishness, the teenage girl in charge of the Salvation Army Church worship group had her 15 charges show me their dance. The great-grandma holds the baby. It's complex. How to be me in humility? The constant tension of rich Americanness. I have an aversion to bringing money into cross-cultural interactions, but my very presence there has obvious financial implications.
The bar part comes in because that was the place I was left to be looked after as my host gallivanted about on his multitude of business. It would be a cool venue anywhere, but was apparently built by a retired national head of police whose efforts had not been unrewarded, if you catch my drift. The sort of man who needs razor wire on the 8 ft wall around his house. So again, torn. Experienced something unparalleled but realizing that I cannot honor it.
Kari & Jason (good pictures of their place on "Next 5" at the bottom of the page) get into Nairobi from Denver tonight. We're set to depart tomorrow morning on a chartered flight north to the Nuba Mountains.
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Hi Hannah! I keep meaning to email you but this is better than nothing. I just want to let you know how great is was to look and hear about your time in Bethlehem around Christmas -- I kept feeling specially connected to that place because you were there! Strange. Also I hope you're having a wonderful time in Africa. My Dad and Elliott are there too now, in Kenya and Uganda but just for 10 days. Enjoy it for me. I'm getting a little stir-crazy.
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