Day 3 v2.0

Right after I left last night, I encountered my first street boy. He was no more than 3 and came running up to me and grabbed hold of my hand and asked for money. You’re not supposed to give the street kids money because they likely take it back to an older person who is using them or use it to buy the gasoline/glue concoction that the street kids here huff. I usually carry food around with me to give them in lieu of money, but I just got here and haven’t situated yet.

When his tiny, dirty, already callused at age 3 hand slipped into mine, my heart broke into a million pieces. I keep saying how I forgot this and how I forgot that, but the tiniest street children are the ones I truly forgot. It’s like someone kicks you in the balls and gouges your eye at the same time to have to decline a request from a dirty, hungry, toddler who lives on the streets. Even writing it now kind of makes me want to vomit. I will not make the same mistake again and will be certain to have copious amounts of extra food with me at all times.

So that was last night, then I went home and saw John and Esther (host couple) for the first time since I left. I saw Michelle, their daughter, yesterday morning when I arrived. They gave me great big grins and hugs and we chatted a bit. I gave them their shiny new Dell laptop that they seemed to LOOOOVE and went to bed shortly after 9:00pm. I noticed my door doesn’t close. I asked if there was a trick to closing it and the response was “No, it’s broken.” So Kenyan. Um, how about fixing it?

So the Kiambis live next to a mosque and those asshole Muslims just love to start calling you to prayer at 4:00am. Then again at 6:00am. It’s a LOUD chant over an intercom system that has speakers facing outward from the building on every corner of said building. And it’s long. Like 3 minutes long. Every day. It also wakes the local roosters who start crowing and the dogs who start howling. I’m DYING for ear plugs but they don’t really exist here. I’ve checked 4 shops including 2 different Nakumatts. I don’t really know how I’m going to cope. I’m such an idiot! I wore ear plugs every night for 46 days last time. You’d think I’d remember a minor detail like that. Or getting a visa. Or bringing a towel. Unless it’s buried in someone’s lap, sometimes I have no idea where my head is at.

I got out of bed at 8am, which is when I’m supposed to be at Dickson, which takes about 40 minutes to get to. I made the conscious decision at 4am when the chanting began that I was going to do so, which I hate (being late) but I was dying and still jet lagged. LUCKILY, we were out of water this morning and it takes an hour to pump more into the building, so I would have had to have waited anyway! So sleeping in didn’t affect my timeliness. Funny how things work out. Also funny that running out of water is a situation that calls for starting a sentence with “luckily”.

Michelle is kind of a cunt and that was cleared up today when I was trying to read Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” and she kept trying to pull the book away from me and touching it. She’s an only child and thus not subject to any discipline and is allowed to get away with bloody murder. I love all children, but sometimes I just want to sit on them. BTW, Micah- Alice is a fantastic writer. Nothing short of brilliance and genius, but this story better have a twist ending because it’s breaking my heart more and more with every line.

I finally pooped today. I was getting worried because I have more Metamucil in me than Sophia Petrillo (RIP) and nothing was happening. Now, despite how freely I write about and talk about poop and how adept I’ve become at handling orphan poop, I’m still really poop shy. I blame my mother for that, but no one’s perfect. At any rate, that does not help my situation of bad food and no produce. Thankfully, everyone but the maid and Michelle had left by the time I went so I was able to relax.

Ok, so, enough about my bowels and on to more disgusting stuff. CHILDREN!!! My face is already riddled with blemishes because the kids cannot stop touching my face with their dirty hands. And I don’t mean dirty like the way American children have dirty hands. I mean dirty like the way Kenyan children have dirty hands. Actual dirty, garbage, fecal matter, urine, and anything else that is toxic that they can get their hands on. They love playing “Guess who?” by running up behind me when I’m sitting and covering my eyes. I have no doubt I will be blinded by staph by the end of this trip, but it’s worth it to see them gleeful relish in my attempts to guess. Also, you all know I’m crazy about my skin, but somehow living with all these zits is ok when I’m here. Probably because I'm not getting any, but I digress.

Away from zits and pooping and on to the project. We played the Kenyan version of Free the Bunch, which was my favorite version of tag as a child, and I ended up a sweaty hot mess after 20 minutes. Still, I highly recommend playing it if you can. Especially with small children. It’s easier to win that way.

I missed out on lunch because I was asked to review the rules for volunteers at Dickson. Luckily, what I missed was ugali. In addition to being disgusting, it doesn’t exactly aid digestion. It’s like eating cement. It consists of flour and water. That’s it. This is literally the recipe I pulled:

To make ugali, you will need:
200g of maize flour or cornflour 1 litre of water boiling in a pan A bowl full of cold water Wooden spoon

Yummy. So instead I had a Red Bull, 100 grams of mixed nuts, and a Trader Joes fruit leather (thanks Courtney!) By the way, Dickson requires us to abstain from “clothing that would be considered repulsive by the local people.” What exactly do Kenyans find repulsive in terms of fashion? Abercrombie and Fitch? Polyester? Pleather?

We took the kids down to the beach to play today. For some reason they were off from school. Funny thing happened. These beach boys came by (kids who live on the beach) and started playing soccer with me and Emmanuel and Peter and Kio and then my boys stopped playing and the beach boys continued using the ball. The Dickson kids went on to play other games and stuff and once more street kids joined in the soccer game, the Dickson kids started getting pouty. I asked what was wrong and they said they wanted their soccer ball.

It’s funny how kids everywhere are the same. They were totally content as they were, but once someone starts having fun with a toy they have abandoned, all of a sudden that toy looks shiny and new and is the only thing they want to play with. Normally I wouldn’t give in to this behavior, but I feel like these kids are in a situation where they rarely have an opportunity to make other children envious and thus I confiscated the ball from the street kids and gave it to the Dickson kids. The street kids asked if they could all play together and I said to ask the Dickson kids and the Dickson kids said no! I couldn’t believe it. I thought since it’s soccer they would obviously want to play Dickson v. Street Kids, but the didn’t want to share at all! I was merely trying to include the Dickson kids in on the decision making, I didn’t expect them to say no. Still, I stuck by their decision, but was sad to permit the Dickson kids to deprive the street kids of playing ball. Even though it was the Dickson kids' ball, children are children and the beach boys wanted to play and have fun just as much as the Dickson kids wanted to.

Kids are also funny in how remarkably similar they are all over the world. They love throwing rocks, picking at bugs, and playing with sticks. Everyone wanted a hiking stick and everyone kept picking up rocks and throwing them in the water and over the cliff, and everyone was collecting hermit crabs in little cups. Yes, I know hermit crabs are not a bug, it was just an example. The kids chased grasshoppers too. Happy?

I went to the Nakumatt in Nyali to see if they have ear plugs and they didn’t. On the way back, the traffic was horrible and somehow the 2 lane road became 4 lanes with everyone driving everywhere. It was pretty nuts. Also, the mutato took off while I was still standing. I managed to not fall over because I have an amazing core that is pure muscle, but it was pretty scary.

Seriously though, I have no idea how I didn’t fall over. I have routinely walked into doors while opening them and trip going up the stairs. But, by some grace of God I didn’t go flying either out of the mutatu or into the laps of angry Kenyans.

The thing I want to end on today is what an amazing lesson in discipline this trip is. I really recommend it highly to everyone. Screaming Muslims at 4am, flying boogers, packed shanty vehicles, no service, no personal space, I know it all sounds horrific, but it’s actually fascinating to me to see how much I can put up with. I’m not exactly a rough-and-tumble guy, so it amazes me how I can manage under such crap conditions. I don’t know if it’s Dickson that sustains me or the fact that I like being a contradiction or just that we really don’t need all the things and comforts we think we need, but I like making do here. I avoid the valley, I avoid Brooklyn, and I only see top dermatologists, but somehow this scary yet magical place turns me into someone new for 5 weeks. And I hope it lasts a lifetime. (Note: this does not mean I’m going to live in the valley or Brooklyn)