day thirty two

Just before I left for Kenya, I clearly remember my sister telling me I was an aggressive driver, to which I disagreed vehemently, and then proceeded to overtake everyone. Reminiscing on that makes me laugh, as now having experienced being a driver in Kenya all I can say is my driving style is nothing compared to the Kenyans! Far out brussel sprout!

On Sunday we went to the Khayega markets, which on a normal day is a bustling, vibrant, messy, but add in the fact that it was Sunday, walking around was akin to mud wrestling, and the huge black clouds meant rains were ever ominous, made shopping for nyanya and meat and maize all the more interesting. 

At one stage Mama J was buying maize in large quantities. Seeing that it was just myself and her, a man decided to take this opportunity to aggressively avail his services to carry the large sack back to the car. However Shida had come with us to the markets for this purpose, so the mans services were rendered useless. As Mama J was discussing the price with the vendor, this aggressive man came to me and what I thought I heard him say was "Hey mzungu, want some nigga, only 10 bob" with the distinct smell of alcohol on his breath and this look in his eye which made it very obvious what he wanted. Apparently what he asked was if I wanted some changaa, the local moonshine which is known to cause blindness and death. Either way, hell no did I want to accept whatever it was he was offering! It was at that point which I decided I wanted to be able to defend myself in Swahili, as my only comeback was enda - go away. I really wish I knew some more 'choice' words, as I would've liked to teach him a lesson.

However, I have embarked on teaching others a lesson - I am sick of people calling me mzungu, especially when they know my name, I can understand it when I'm walking through a marketplace like Khayega and the vendors are trying to get my attention, or little kids see me walking past and call out - that's cool, it's part of the culture. Sure, it wouldn't fly if back home in Australia I saw a person with dark skin walk past and I yelled out "Hi black person!", but then again I'm sure that if I called out "Hey person!" I'd be called on for political incorrectness, as they may not identify themselves as a 'person' or whatever.

Anyway, back to my story of being sick of others calling me mzungu when it isn't necessary... As a foreigner, it is always a shock to locals when I speak Swahili. Utilising this shock tactic, I have learnt to say "Jina langu ni si mzungu" translating to "My name is not white person". BOOM! Take that! Sure I'm probably being petty and possibly even rude, but it makes me feel better, so there. 

Other than that nothing much is going on. The power was off from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday evening, meaning that once my laptop was flat I didn't get much work done, but instead chatted with everyone at work, as everyone was in the same position - no electricity, no functionality of laptops, microscopes, refrigerators etc...  even the patients have stayed away. But it also is maize planting time, so everyone is busy out in the fields. 

I love my workplace, everyone here is just lovely, and there's always someone to laugh with. And there is a resident cat! He is so skinny and sad looking, I want to pick him up and love him, but then he'd probably scratch me and give me rabies. Poor cat. Oh, the local word for cat is pusi. The other day one of the guys said "I want to find someone who can eat my pusi"... to which I burst out laughing because without translating the final word that sentence is awful. However it is innocent - it is because the cat is not eating the rats. So everyone was joking about feeding it to the Chinese who reside at the bottom of the hill - there is a huge group of Chinese workers here making tarmac roads and everything gets blamed on them. 

So that is what has been happening. Thursday night I'm off to Nairobi for the Easter long weekend, am hoping to get me some kahawa from Nairobi Java House, and see some giraffes at the safari park just outside of the city. Will tell you of all my adventures.