Day 2 v2.0

I’m here. I’m alive. Lots to report already.

One of my suitcases didn’t arrive. It’s funny, I wasn’t upset because in all honesty, I was truly expecting neither to arrive. Everything is such a mess here and with 4 airports involved (JFK, AMS, NBO, MBA) it was inevitable something would happen. I have no idea what was in that suitcase so hopefully it will show up soon. If it doesn’t, does the airline give me money? Because in that case, I had packed my Monet, Fabrege egg collection, and Tiffany diamonds.

So when I arrived sans visa, I found there was a line to purchase one. Easy enough. However, the line was 100 deep and I had a connecting flight to catch. Why Kenya Airways is stupid enough to schedule a 2 hour layover when one has to go through passport control is beyond me. Also, I guess I haven’t flown internationally and then domestically much (and must have forgotten from last year), but you have to go through passport control when you arrive in the country, not at your final destination. So I asked for some help. The idea of service here is laughable. I forgot that on a daily basis someone would say “pole, pole” to me, which means “slow down”. Slow is an understatement. I have no idea why this nation has any clocks because there is no concept of time. They just told me to wait in line. Thanks dude, um, I’m already doing that. I said I have a connection to Mombasa, they just shrugged and said “Let’s see how long this takes” which I don’t know if they meant let’s wait and then move you to the front if need be or let’s wait and if you miss it, you miss it (which is SOOOO Kenyan). I finally found someone willing to help me. He took my passport and $100 and then started to hop from passport control guy to passport control guy. They don’t stamp a visa into your passport anymore, they put a sticker in it. The first guy ran out of stickers. At 7:30am he ran out of stickers. So Kenyan. Then he hopped to two more guys and I’m following him and starting to panic a little because if I lose him, I’m kind of fucked. He finally gets me a sticker and starts walking me to baggage claim and says “You would have been here for hours, how about I keep the change?” I was kind of flustered and grateful that I didn’t miss my flight that I said fine. In hindsight, I should have just slipped him a $20. I mean, he came out $50 ahead for helping me. This is what gets me too. Everything is “pole, pole” until it’s time to hustle someone. Then it’s like Flash Gordan. I’m disoriented, just got through passport control, about to miss my flight, have to claim and recheck my baggage (you have to personally transfer your luggage here when flying domestically- ya, I know) and looking for lost luggage and this is where the guy tries to get money out of me. Slick Rick indeed.

As I try to move my luggage (the piece that actually arrived and my carry-on) those helpful guys from Day 2 last time came to try to hustle money out of me as I’m moving my own luggage. In case you missed it last time around, they moved my luggage 10 feet for me and then tried to get $10 out of me as a tip. This time I moved my own luggage and they walked alongside me to “show me the way” and then asked for a tip. Much like last year, I shot them my gayest “Are you insane?” look and moved on. It was comforting, however, to have an air of familiarity around me, even if it was money swindling

I then arrived in Mombasa, and asked the guy at the Lost Luggage counter for Kenya Airways how much a taxi to town was. He said 1800 Ksh (Kenyan shillings) and that he’d call one for me- a friend of his. I walked to money exchange and asked how much a taxi to town was, and she said 700 Ksh. I then asked a taxi driver and he said 900 Ksh. Are you starting to get a sense of how things work around here? I quickly learned last time to ask three disparate people about a price and then find a happy medium.

He took me to the apartment I’m staying at I met the new maid (not very friendly), showered, and headed to Dickson. I forgot that publicly picking your nose while talking to someone and then flicking your boogers into the air is totally acceptable. Between the whizzing snot and whizzing mutatos, it’s amazing I have yet to be struck.

They paved the road to Port Reitz! That’s the ½ mile or so muddy road I had to walk down every day to get to Dickson. Now I get to ride in a mutato the whole way. Of course, the mutato had 19 people in it and only 14 seats, but beggars can’t be choosers and I will gladly squish between sweaty, smelly, fatties to avoid that treacherous muddy walk every day.

The kids knew I was coming and made a welcome sign!!! I wanted to melt. They all were grinning ear-to-ear and the current volunteers there were like “Ya, we know who you are, they won’t shut up about it” which made me MELLLLLLLT. Some of the kids have gotten so big and others look exactly like they did. It was really too much. Moses had his face covered with food and Manu had his face covered in snot, both of which are their respective M.O.s and it was like I’d never left. I didn’t get to spend much time with them today because I’m all fucked up from travel and left early, but hopefully will spend more time with everyone tomorrow.

I do have a concern. The kids are all enrolled in the same school now; an academy of sorts that has them in class 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. 4 of kids who were in pre-school at the Centre are now in regular school. So during the day, it’s just Marion, Yvette, and Milka who are in pre-school as opposed to 7 last summer. So there’s a LOT less work to be done, and the kids I tutored in the afternoon (Sauda, Vincent, Ongeri, and Jumwa) are all at the academy now so there’s no afternoon tutoring sessions. I’m scared there might not be as much work to be done, PLUS, they got a washing machine, which suits me just fine because washing urine soaked clothing by hand sucked, but again, that cuts down on the work to be done. We’ll see how it goes, but I really hope I can stay as overwhelmed and overworked as I was last year. I really liked that pace and generally like to be semi-pressed for time. Hm. I definitely need some “pole, pole” in my life.

So, I also forgot that children are disgusting. Food everywhere, urine everywhere, they never wash their hands and love to touch me all over- especially my face- and today they each took turns basically sucking on and deep throating my water bottle (I forgot to put it out of reach). Needless to say I had to buy a new one in the afternoon. Which also was a sort of odd experience because the plastic wrap was broken on the bottle, but it appeared to have not been opened yet because the little plastic piece that keeps the lid on hadn’t been broken. I try not to be “that guy” who’s super paranoid, but in a compromise between just chucking the water bottle and drinking it freely, I decided to drink 1/8 of it before chucking it. If I have massive diarrhea tomorrow because it was an old bottle that’s been refilled, I likely won’t be posting. That said, I’d welcome a touch of a bug right now because I’m uber constipated. All that gross travel food doesn’t work well with me. And I just dropped 2400 Ksh at Nakumaat (their version of Wal-Mart) on prepackaged cookies and nuts and crackers and stuff so that likely will not aid my digestion. I’m just always hungry here and those are the only type of things that will last and that I can store in my room. Thank God for Metamucil.

On my walk back to Migadini to grab a mutatu, Juma the biker came by on a moped! Juma gave me a tandem bike ride a few times last year and then asked me if I was Japanese (see last year, Day 30). He’s been blessed by God (his words) and now has a moped. I gave him 50 Ksh for his trouble which he gladly accepted. I was SOOO happy to see that things are going well for him. He’s such a great, nice guy. Yes, he almost killed me several times, but what’s a little near-miss death between friends?

I went to Dormans and got a burger and a Coke after Nakumaat and before the internet café. The waitress remembered me from last year, which was really nice. I love when things like that happen! We had fried cabbage and white bread for lunch and I don’t know how this new woman cooks, so I wanted to make sure to eat something of substance today.

I’m so happy to be back. It’s a little scary because a lot is like I remembered, a lot is different, and the first few days of anything are always a little nerve wracking.