Day 26 v2.0

I am an upper-middle class American pussy; I am not a Kenyan.

I had another one of these moments at show ground yesterday. Yesterday, for the 2nd time in my life, I got a little sunburned on my shoulders. I didn't wear sunscreen (on accident, I had it with me) and got a lil pink on my shoulders. I have been to many hot and sunny locales and the only other time I was sunburned was when I was 10 years old and spent the entire day on a beach in Miami after being cooped up all winter in Minnesota. Other than that, never been burned. It's already turning tan (it was sort of pink last night and this morning, but by this afternoon all the redness is gone) so I don't think I'm going to peel or anything, but ya. African sun. Wear sunscreen. I brought it on myself for making fun of that volunteer who got burned. What goes around comes around.

Today I took one of my neighbors to Dickson. We've become friendly over the weeks and she's interested in volunteering on the weekends. She's 22 and seems pretty great, but is sitting next to me so I'll refrain from using her name because it would be likely to catch her eye if she glanced over.

On the ride over, she informed me that Kenya is actually 10x more corrupt than I think it is. The media only covers what it's allowed to cover, numbers are always skewed, etc, etc, etc. I can't fathom how it could possibly be any worse, but I guess I'm not surprised.

When I got to Dickson, I was to get Kezia and Monica and we were going to go back to town for Monica's dentist appointment. I tried to get us to walk to Migadini and take the mutatu from there since a) the Migadini mutatu would take us basically right to the dentist's office and b) we had to either walk a lot at the front of our trip (i.e. to Migadini) or through town because the mutatu from Port Reitz stops in the middle of town, not by the dentist's office. Kezia wanted us to walk through town, which is sucks because we'd have to push through the crowds as opposed to walking down the crowd free streets of Port Reitz, but whatever.

The dentist cost Ksh3,000, about $50, which I paid for. I was not thanked, but I got to thinking and really it didn't bother me too much. I was thinking back and I can't think of any time I've heard the words "asante" from a Kenyan to a Kenyan. The only time I hear it is at the end of an English conversation I have with a Kenyan in which I am providing them with some sort of business (and even then it's not all the time). I guess saying "thank you" is not really a part of the culture. Even at restaurants and stuff, I'm always saying thank you to the servers and I never get thanked for my business or anything like that. The kids are SORT OF good about thanking volunteers but that's more about the constant western influence than the kids themselves. They rarely do it in Swahili to each other or to staff or something. It was really jarring for the longest time, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is not America and my expectations must be different. In fact, it's really assanine of me to think that they should do thigns our way because why is our way any better? It's not. It's just different. Yes, I prefer it because I think it's nice but the argument could be made that it's really fake. So, despite the lack of gratitude, I was ok with it and glad that Monica is no longer in constant pain, which ultimately is the only thing that matters.

I read the May 2008 and August 2008 issues of Men's Health: South Africa while waiting for Monica. It's pretty much exactly the same as Men's Health: America. It must be nice to be able to repackage a magazine simply by switching the words "dollar" and "USA" with the words "shilling" and "Africa". After I paid, I realized that there was a computer with internet access available to use while waiting. I was pretty pissed about that until I logged in to Gmail and it promptly kicked me off. Twice.

Everyone here is so fascinated by Red Bull. I drank a Red Bull on the mutatu ride back to Port Reitz and the conductor asked me if it was the juice of a bull. I said it was not. I can't wait to stop drinking that piss though. I can't imagine the kind of damage I'm doing to my insides while here. Packages of cookies, more carbs than a stadium filled with marathon runners, Red Bull, dust, air pollution, I've really never been grosser in my life. (That's not true. I was grosser last year, but it was still in Kenya.)

When I got back to Dickson, we played some games with the kids for a while and then they all became TV zombies. I hate when that happens, but what're you gonna do. I went and cleaned and did some sweeping and stuff like that and it really hit me as to why America has developed so much more. Obviously there are many factors, but a predominate one is work ethic. I'm not kidding when I say that if, in America, I worked at the rate and quality that I do here, I would be fired. I would fire each and every staff member at Dickson and each and every public and private employee I've thus far encountered. But it's the culture. If they aren't told to do something, it doesn't get done. The floor clearly needed to be swept, but everyone was sitting around watching TV instead. Now, I know I have a fairly strong work ethic, so that might be a part of it, but I'm really not that crazed. I didn't get all A's in law school (or undergrad for that matter) so it's not like I always work really hard; that said, I didn't get this far in my life by sitting around on my ass (yes, I recognize the generous financial support my parents provided me were key too) but my parents didn't buy my grades or promotions at jobs or what have you. So maybe I'm a little more harsh than most would be, but what would you say if you hired someone to run your home and then came home to see that the place was a mess and they were watching TV with the kids? Or if your employees ignored customers? Or if your servers took 20 minutes to get menus to patrons? It's really hard for me to wrap my head around this.

But enough complaining. I mean, I'm really not complaining (although it may sound like it), but rather I feel like I'm documenting. I'm just sharing my thoughts and experiences here. Also, as I said at the beginning of my trip, this is more like a journal that I'm making available to the world. I want to remember certain things and memories and observations, and so it can't just all be the good stuff. I want to remember the things I didn't like too.

I leave a week from tomorrow and again I had this anxiety attack about that today. I was sitting with Apina watching some Swahili film and I just got really ill to the pit of my stomach. I'm really reaching my saturation point with Mombasa as a city (a month is a long time) but I am not ready to leave the kids. I don't suppose I would ever be "ready" but it's too soon. I wish I could stay until I really couldn't stand to be here anymore. I'm annoyed with the yelling and traffic and smells and hustling, but I could still take it just to be with the kids. When we were playing this Kenyan version of tag today, I was so happy and just having so much fun it was ridiculous. Also, I'm at the part of "Freakonomics" about parenthood (PLEASE go get this book, it's one of the most fascinating reads ever) so it's making me think a lot about the kids and my own future kids and children generally and it's making me just want to scoop up all 29 of them and bring them to the US.

I don't know how I'm going to leave them. On Monday I suggest you all buy stock in Kleenex because their shares are going to skyrocket when I return.