Back To The Grind

When we got back from Mombasa, we thought that our partying and drinking was behind us and that it would be time to return to the grind in Nairobi.  Well, this wasn’t the case.  We arrived home to the news that Jenga (Pastor Regina’s son) was planning a house party for the upcoming weekend because his parents would be visiting family in Nakuru.  He was keeping it a secret from his parents for obvious reasons (ahh, we’ve all been there…well actually I haven’t because my parents are cool as fuck and never cared if I had a party).  This was, co-incidentally, the weekend of Halloween.  People in Kenya don’t care about that “holiday” at all; I expect that most don’t even know what it is.  But the volunteers got excited for it and started thinking about costumes.  I was looking forward to the party, but the preparation was annoying for all of us living in the house.  Allow me to explain: Jenga would wait until Regina wasn’t there before testing out his sound system.  The week leading up to the party is only remembered by me for the whole house shaking with from Jenga’s obnoxiously loud music.  He only ever played the first 20 or so seconds of a song, which made it even more frustrating.  If he was going to rape our eardrums, he should have at least let the whole song play out.  And ok listen, I like loud music.  I like to “get down”, to “move it move it” as they say.  But he was playing music so loud that NO ONE was enjoying it.  The whole house was shaking.  I was actually worried a couple times that the windows in my room were going to break.  What made it worse was that his selection of party-music was nothing but the same generic reggae-pop that pollutes the airwaves here in Kenya.  I should have introduced him to some good dance music, like thrown on some Bar 9 or Noisia or something, but he was far too focussed on seeing how loud his speakers could go before they exploded.

The day of the party finally came (Saturday) and most of the other volunteers had costumes, sort of.  Sorry to be a party pooper or something but I didn’t exactly pack for my year-long Africa trip with Halloween in mind.  So, lame as it may be, I didn’t dress up. I fit in better that way though because, like I said, I don’t think Africans care/know about Halloween and honestly, I think most of Jenga’s guests were more confused than anything when they saw mzungu girls trying to be pirates.  The party itself was a little bit awkward to start.  There were six of us white people there compared to probably thirty Kenyans and when we first went into where all the action was, we just got stared at by everybody. It was awkward.  We retreated to a little corner and braved the glares while we played drinking games in an attempt to eventually decrease the awkwardness of the situation.  Not Paddy though, that guy is a trooper.  He circulated the room like a boss all night, introducing himself to strangers and making new friends.  It may have had something to do with his costume, which consisted of him wearing a pair of pantyhose on head and cutting out eye and mouth-holes.  They probably didn’t even know he was white!  Jenga had the loud, obnoxious, generic music blaring even louder than it was during the week leading up to the party, but no one was dancing.  It took a good few hours for people to feel comfortable I guess.  Jenga and his friends made food (ugali and kale) for everybody and after people had had their fill of that, it was on.  Out of nowhere, the living turned from an awkward elementary school dance to a nightclub at Westlands on Thursday night.  I don’t know, maybe it’s a custom in Kenya that you have to eat ugali and kale before you’re allowed to bust out the moves.  By that point in the night, we had all had enough to drink (volunteers and Kenyans) that any pre-existing awkwardness was essentially gone.  The Kenyan guys jumped at the opportunity to dance with real live white girls and so Kate and Elle spent the majority of the rest of the night fighting guys off with a stick.  The rest of the night was essentially one gigantic photo-op and I spent most of it playing paparazzi.

Much to Jenga’s chagrin, most of us were ready for bed by about 1:00 AM, myself included.  I was lucky that I was full of beer because there was no way I would have fallen asleep sober.  That house was loud.  I passed out for the next eight hours or so, but when I wake up, get this, the music was still going.  The party went until 11:00 AM in the morning.  I’m sorry but that’s insane.  Apparently people had been up all night, drinking and dancing.  People only began to leave the next morning.  I like to party hard, but wow.  That’s impressive.  At about noon, Jenga finally turned the music off and our ears were allowed to rest.  All-in-all, that house party was quite an experience, one not to be forgotten.

I don’t know if you guys have been following the news (or if this even made the news back home) but Kenya has been on high alert concerning terrorist attacks for almost a month now.  The situation in Somalia is not subsiding really at all so the danger of an attack, especially in Nairobi, has not decreased since October.  The second largest mall in Nairobi is a 20-minute walk from where I live, and us volunteers go there pretty often to get our fix of commercialism.  They have been checking cars as they enter the parking lot by scanning the underside with a mirror and checking the trunks.  It’s actually a little bit intimidating to see that all the time.  It makes me legitimately worry that something actually might happen.  We were having dinner at this restaurant (in said mall) because two of the volunteers were going to be leaving the next day.  We were sat on the top floor and had a clear view of the main entrance to the mall.  At about 9:00PM, hoards of people started pouring out of the entrance in a huge rush.  We all started freaking out, like there was someone strapped with dynamite inside or something.  We sat tight and nothing happened.  We figured out later that it was just the employees of the supermarket that closes at 8:30 rushing to get their buses.  I bet the staff of the restaurant was laughing at the stupid mzungus.

Amidst all this madness, I managed to get sick for a second time.  I started feeling kind of gross on our last night in Mombasa; I wasn’t really able to keep any food down.  So upon returning to Nairobi, back to the hospital I went.  It turned out that I had a throat infection (much less stressful than amebiasis) which is highly contagious, and several people at the house I’m living at had already had it, so no surprise there I guess.  I got more pills to take as well as some truly nasty mouthwash that I had to use three times a day.  The doctor told me to come back to see him for a check-up in five days.  He did some math in his head and told me “next Thursday” (it was Tuesday) which was a little bit, um, wrong, but I went with it.  When I went back the next week, it was the third time I had been there in something like a month, I felt like a hypochondriac and I think the hospital staff felt the same way.  By that time, the doctor and I were practically bffs, and while I was waiting, he passed through the lobby and we talked for a minute or so.  I should get his facebook deets or something, shit.  Anyway, that’s all done and I’m no longer sick.  I’m hoping that’s it for a while.

Paddy organized another game for Grace Academy FC on his last weekend in Kenya, and the competition was much stiffer.  Our team doesn’t have jerseys or boots or anything, we’re like the least legitimate team I’ve ever seen, but you can’t blame us because those things cost money and pfffffft lame.  Anyway, as our guys were warming up, I was trying to figure out who our opponents were.  There were lots of games going on in the surrounding area so it wasn’t immediately clear who we would be playing.  There were a group of boys strapping on their cleats near me but it couldn’t be them, they looked too professional.  They all had Spanish national team jerseys and cleats that looked brand new. Also, most of them looked to be at least 13 or 14 years old (our guys are about 10 I think).  I kept searching for our opponents but all of a sudden this group of young teenagers sporting the jerseys of the current European and World champions took to the field.  Fuck.  These guys were really good, but our guys actually put up a decent showing against them.  We got beaten 4-0, which was a little disheartening for the kids, but the coach told us that they win by upwards of 10-0 on a regular occasion.  He was actually quite impressed with our team.  One of the goals against us was embarrassing as hell: our keeper collected a ball in the box, and instead of going for a drop-kick or something, he placed the ball on the six-yard line (like it was a goal kick).  One of the players from the other team saw this, ran up, and scored the easiest goal of his life.  I guess I have some more to teach them…

A little while ago, before Kate and Adam went back home to Canada, the three of us went into downtown Nairobi (terrorism threats and all, we’re hard) to go to the top of the Kenyatta National Tower.  It is a 50-story building in the heart of the city that offers a great view of Nairobi, so we took some time to go check that out.  It was an amazing view.  Before we got on a bus back to Regina’s, we hung around the city for a little bit to get some food.  A regular thing in Nairobi (and I imagine most of Africa to be the same) is that preachers place themselves in the crowded areas and shout about Jesus (in Swahili meaning I can’t get what they’re saying, I’m sure it’s mindblowing though…).  As we were returning from getting food, there was this one preacher, shouting at the top of her lungs.  Fine, that’s normal I’m used to that, but she was doing the strangest thing: at the end of every sentence, so probably about once every couple of seconds, she yelped like a chicken.  It was So. Fucking. Weird. Words can honestly do no justice to it, so I sneakily took a video without her noticing.  I’ll upload it later if I get the chance, but trust me: it was bizarre.

The volunteers have been slowly leaving to go back home.  At the beginning of September there were tonnes of people here to hang out with.  Some new people have come in, but not as many as before and none of them are living in Pasor Regina’s house.  The last two volunteers that were living here left this weekend so I’m now completely alone.  It kind of sucks but I only have a month left (probably less because I think I’ll just leave early) and if it gets too boring I will just move to volunteer house, where there are currently five people I believe (I don’t know why the hell none of them are living here, Fadhili is weird sometimes).

I’ll end this post off by sharing with you the awkward situation I’m currently in.  Regina employs a woman named Virginia as her maid.  During the week, she is here all day.  She cleans, does their laundry, and cooks.  The volunteers living here have gotten to know her pretty well as she is always here and we talk to her.  Well about a month and a half ago, someone brought up that they thought they were missing some money.  At that, three other people mentioned that they too were missing money, but they previously thought it was just their own error in counting or something so hadn’t brought it up.  After some deliberation, we were certain that someone had stolen from at least four volunteers (see where this is going?).  Some people were only missing something like $30 but Margaret was missing over $200.  The thing is though, it wasn’t just lying around.  Margaret’s money was in a bag, which was inside another bag, which was inside yet another bag.  So someone was obviously looking very hard.  We decided that it wasn’t any of the volunteers because, well, we’re just such amazing people and would never do something like that, obviously.  It clearly wasn’t any of the small children (all under 9 years old) and we couldn’t decide who else it would be.  We counted Virginia out almost immediately because she was always so nice to us, but that was obviously stupid.  We went to Regina to talk to her about it the next day, and Virginia was fired on the following day.  End of story, right?  Well, no.  She hadn’t actually been fired, she had been forced to take a week off, during which time Regina handled the cleaning and cooking duties.  She was obviously exhausted from all of this and a week later, Virginia was back.  It was insanely awkward.  She stole from us and we knew it, and she knew that we knew it.  We had been given keys to our rooms by that point and locked them every time that we left, but it was still very awkward being around her.  About two days later, Jenga, Regina’s son, caught Virginia in the act.  So she got fired again, and then came back again after about a week.  I guess it’s hard to find a god maid or something because that just would not fly back home. So she’s been fired and re-hired twice, and is currently working for Regina, in the house every day.  I lock my door every time I leave the room now (not just the house, I lock it to take a shower) and sometimes she is downstairs (where our rooms are) ironing and it’s soooo awkward locking the door with her right there, because I think she knows that she’s the only reason I do it.

Anyway, that’s it.  I’m all up to date (finally, I’ve been putting this off forever).  I’m not sure exactly what the next couple of weeks for me will entail, but I guess you’ll find out by reading my next post.  Until next time, take it easy.