Day 35

Before I begin, let me say that contrary to what you've been reading on here, I am not inordinately obsessed with feces. In fact, under normal circumstances, I am the FIRST person to start shrieking like a schoolgirl and hitting the speaker when the conversation turns to poop. It's simply not lady-like to discuss such body functions and as you all know, I am a proper lady through and through. It simply is the case that I am not in a normal lifestyle situation here and number 2 keeps popping up left and right. My disgust/phobia is probably my mom's fault (always blame the mother). In reality, she had a couple of horrific poop experiences as a child, one involving her falling into a toilet in Iran (In Iran they basically have a big hole in the ground. Over the 40 days that I was there in 1992, I shat 3 times because I could not bring myself to stand over a hole and shit into it). At any rate, my mom had some trauma and has been miffed by poop ever since. I am the only child that actually listened to her growing up and as a result am utterly creeped out by poop and all things poop related. My brother on the other hand eats food WHILE taking a shit. We're a proud clan, the Daivari's. That said, on to today's posting, which begins yet again with a poop tale.

I finally broke today and am now ready to leave Kenya. I'm not ready to leave my kids, but I don't think I will ever be, so I have to gauge by when I'm ready to leave Kenya and today marks the beginning of the end. I have 7 days left, and I think that's a proper amount of time. I was awakened at 5:00am today with a massive urge to go shit. It finally struck after 35 days. I really thought I was going to be the ONLY person in history to come to Kenya and not have a bout with Imodium A-D. I blame the mutton burger I had for lunch yesterday. I mean, the last time someone had mutton was in the middle ages. At any rate, I was ill all morning but still went to work; albeit an hour late.

Since I was in a unclear state of mind, I really did almost get killed by a matatu today. I actually pulled a move I pull in New York, which is to hit the vehicle with an open palm when it gets to close. This matatu got so close that not only did I hit it with my hand, I honestly could have head butted the vehicle. Inches, literally inches away. I could almost swear that he was trying to get as close as possible with the knowledge that he very well could have hit me.

It was a pretty calm day at Dickson. I told the kids I wasn't feeling well and they were very sympathetic and well-behaved. At the end of the day I gave them a DVD of Home Alone 1-5 (who knew there was a 3, 4, and 5?) and we watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Well, WE watched about 20 minutes of it before I decided that I'd sooner eat the pile of liquid shit that came out of me that morning than watch another minute of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The film (and I use the term "film" loosely) did however make me miss home. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Macauly Caulkin managed to see Times Square, the Statute of Liberty, the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building, Central Park, and got to check-in at The Plaza all before lunch time. Home Alone 2 is so based in reality it's practically a Dogma 95 film.

On the way home I noticed a few roadside stands that were selling herbal remedies out of jars. It was straight up out of the wild wild west. Elixirs and tonics and herbs to cure what ails ya. I also saw a homeless woman with no feet begging for money. I also saw a slew of children huffing glue and gasoline and a ton of repressed Islamic women. I think what really has made me ready to leave is that I can't handle it here anymore. That bitch Debbie Downer has reared her ugly head again and in all honesty, my heart just can't take anymore. My heart physically hurts from what I'm seeing every single day. From the villages to the kids to the homeless to the lack of water to the lack of nutrients. Even the animals make me sick because the cows look emaciated as hell. Seeing a cow that weighs less than 100 pounds is as disturbing as it sounds. My heart and soul are just so heavy and dampered and I just need to stop seeing it all the time; which is so weak and pathetic, the need to hide my head in the sand for a bit, but I honestly just need a little break. I'm sure that the suffering people need a break too, one that will likely not come in their lifetime, but I'm really at a loss as to what else to do.

After I got to town, I went to my Swahili lesson where I was the only one who showed up. I got gang banged by the two Swahili teachers. Usually one takes the slower people and one takes the more advanced people, but today it was 2 on 1. Between the English, French and Farsi cognates and the 2 years of foreign language studies at USC, I obviously have a better grasp on grammar and such than the average Swahili student, so they just bombard me with useless grammar rules and information, which I understand but don't really need, what I need is a vocabulary. But they got off on me understanding differnt grammar rules and such so they just kept moving forward and I was conjucating the same 4 verbs in the subjunctive, the irregular, the negative, and the present form. I asked a few times to focus on vocab but they were not really listening. I'm learning Swahili from people who's second language is English so it's like broken English teaching fluent Swahili to a fluent English speaker with broken Swahili. It gave me a massive headache and I was really about to just flip out when class ended and I was freed. My dream involving me and two aggressive black men alone in a room were not to be played out like this.

Ever since I arrived, the kids were counting down the days to June 29th, which is when Shrek the Third came to Kenya. I didn't understand why they were so excited, it's not like they were gonna get to go. Last Friday (the 29th) I found out from over a dozen heartbroken Kenyan orphans that they thought Shrek the Third was going to be on TV on the date, they didn't realize it was just an advertisement. So...we're taking the kids to the cinema on Saturday to see Shrek the Third. None of them have been to a movie theater before. Myself, C.U.N.T. and a few others are paying for everyone and the matatus to take us to and from the cinema. They've NEVER been. Can you imagine? They're going to be blown away. I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.