Day 7: 3 Times a Lady

I realized yesterday that the reason my return flight is taking 2 days is that I have a 21 hour layover at Schipol. I thought I remembered it taking two days to get to Kenya and one day to come back because of the international date line, but I assumed I mis-remembered. Turns out I was right. You end up arriving the next day when you leave Kenya...if you don't have a 21 hour layover. I got a hotel and maybe, finally, after 4 visits to Amsterdam, on lucky trip number 5 I will get high. 4 trips and never once smoked/ate/drank...nothing.

However, I got ridiculously high this morning. How? My first caffeine in 9 days. My heart was racing, my feet were dancing, and my head was spinning. It's shocking how much caffeine can affect me after I don't have it for a while. A double espresso and I was ready to take on 13 Emmanuel-Charleses.

Sorry for the scattered thoughts and non-segues, but I have a lot to say and stayed late at Dickson so I'm rapidly running through all my notes.

Swahili is such a simple language it's astounding. It's simplicity is the only reason I'm flying by in my communication. One word questions, one word answers, no synonyms. Mbaya means bad, negative, sick, poor, and everything that's synonymous with not well. Nzuri means good, yes, happy, fine, well, and a million other things. It's wild. Also, the conjugation is so simple. You just say "present tense" when speaking in the present tense and "past tense" when speaking in the past tense. So you'd say I present tense go store. I past tense go store. Respectively they mean I am going to the store and I went to the store. It's utterly horrifying to me because I'm incredibly verbal and love language. My boss Matt sometimes instructs me to give him a one sentence answer; he hates my multi-paragraph emails. I can give him a one sentence answer, but it usually includes something like three commas, two semi-colons, and a parenthetical.

I had photocopies made of these Spiderman and Barbie worksheets I brought for the kids to learn math and English. While waiting there the American I overheard/saw at Dormans came in. I didn't say anything to him at Dormans, but since he was right in front of me I asked "Are you American?" and he said "Ya, how can you tell?" and I said your accent. I was being super nice and trying to be welcoming and he was super short and kind of a dick. I mean, there are like zero Americans in Mombasa and here I am reaching out to him and he was super crabby. Turns out he's from Minneapolis! Woodbury to be exact. You'd think that would have opened him up but he paid and rushed out. I managed to get out of him that he's been here since February and opening a power plant. I think there's some shadiness going on or he was with a hooker or something because anyone who's been here for that long would be desperate for a quick pow-wow on what's going on stateside not to mention the whole Minneapolis connection. I refuse to believe he was just an asshole. He was probably secret service. Or at least that's what he's going to be when I tell this story in the future.

I noticed at the photocopy place (weird that I just typed that out as photocopy instead of copy, but that's how they say it here and I guess it's starting to stick), anyway, I noticed at the photocopy place that the clock was 15 minutes ahead of Dormans. I realized that there is no time in Mombasa. Almost every clock is broken and the ones that are functioning have a 15 minute variance in either direction.

Time here is such an elusive concept. Things get done when they get done. There are no deadlines or time lines. Everyone is on their own schedule and it's impossible to even try because traffic or crowds or a herd of goats will get in your way and throw you off schedule. How committed we are to time and planning is pretty insane. I personally prefer things to run with machine like precision. I strive to be on time and like planning things out even a month ahead of time, but I don't know if it's that I like it or that I've just been programmed and hardwired to be like that from years of American living. I think it's more efficient, but is efficiency what matters? I don't have the answer, but given that I don't talk much here all I can do is think and ponder life's imponderables. Like polka dots versus stripes.

I came within inches of my life today. I stepped onto the road and even though I looked, I looked the wrong way. Damn left side of the road driving! Had he not been paying attention I would certainly be dead or hospitalized. He honked, yelled at me, and swerved inches away from me. I usually check both ways and then check again before crossing (it's insanely dangerous here and they WILL hit you) but the ONE time I didn't double check, I almost got hit. My guardian angel HATES my trips to Kenya.

Speaking of hate, I do hope my observations don't come across as complaints. A few of them are, but mostly they are observations. I obviously would not keep coming back here if it was miserable. I mean, it is miserable, but I don't have a miserable time. Being in a place like this and working with the kids feeds my soul. It's almost like a meditative retreat because even though I'm in an urban environment I'm very alone and silent and it just gives me time to think and reflect. Also, the exposure to life and lifestyles out here helps raise my gratitude levels to biblical portions. Grateful I live in America, grateful I had loving parents, grateful I have supportive friends, grateful I have clean water, grateful I don't have to deal with corruption on a daily basis, grateful for clean air, litter free streets, social systems that keep children off the streets, social systems that take care of people missing multiple limbs, Red Bull, Madonna, just so many things.

I'm reading Eric Weiner's "The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search to Find the Happiest Places in the World" and it's utterly amazing. I put it up there with "The Tipping Point", "Freakonomics", "The Four-Hour Work Week", and "The Know-It-All". I realize those are very different books, but the throughline is sort of knowledge I guess. I dunno. Anyway, this book is amazing and really making me think a lot about happiness and travel; two things I love. I strongly urge you to check it out. As a counter-point he also visits the unhappiest place on earth, a country in eastern Europe called Moldova. Their happiness level is the lowest in the world. One thing they address is that happiness comes from a sense of community (in Moldova there is none). One line from the book about Moldova sums up one aspect of Kenya better than I ever could. In Moldova, "...it's not first come, first served, but rather most obnoxious, first served." Kinda like Kenya. Wait and you'll wait forever. Push and you'll get on first. Also, in Moldova, the culture encourages taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, a deplorable trait, but one that's embraced here. Sometimes it's touched upon in America. Like when people talk about other people having it worse. That doesn't make me feel better about my situation, instead it makes me feel bad for them too!

We had a volunteer meeting today and Ria gave a bunch of prayers for me. They pray before everything. She was praying about me having a good journey and thanking the Lord for sending me, etc. etc. I don't know. It all felt so showy to me. I never really feel welcomed by them. I ask too many questions and do too much on my own. I just don't trust them. There is just so much shadiness, so many unanswered questions, that it leaves me very unsettled. Still, there's no one to investigate and if anything were to happen to Dickson the children would be sent out onto the streets or worse so I just do what I can while I'm here and try to brighten their lives as much as possible. They are such good kids; they don't deserve this life. They deserve a life like western children have. Good education, clean facilities, toys, love, and opportunity. Even if you try to make something of yourself here, the unemployment rate is something like 40%. How far can one go?

Speaking of good kids, Joram has quickly become the one I want to bring back. It varies each trip and obviously I'd bring them all if I could (or even one if I could), but I can't. First of all, I'm not capable (in more ways than one) to raise a child at this stage of my life. Second, you have to be married to adopt a Kenyan child. Third, you have to live in Kenya for 3 years before you can leave with a child. Fourth, I prefer the company of men; they frown upon that here. But all that aside, Joram is amazing. Such a good, quiet, adorable, fun little kid. Turns out he wasn't BORN in prison as I had thought. He was only living in prison. Big difference. Turns out when you are imprisoned you take your children with you up until age 4 and which point they have to leave. That's when Ria and Matheka stepped in with Joram. They sprung him. Insane.

Today, I fed Erik, changed him, played with him, and put him to sleep for a nap. He literally fell asleep in my arms while I was feeding him. It was pretty awesome and I got a tremendous joy out of it. I was so totally born to be a mother. Erik rewarded me by peeing all over my lap.

In other body function news, Mwangi-Joshua again shat in the sandbox and covered it with sand. That was not something I was going to even go near. When one of the children came into the house to report it, I simply continued playing Memory with the other Mwangi and let someone else handle it.

Memory. There has to be a logical explanation for this, but twice I set out to beat Mwangi. Twice out of the 37 games we played. Damn children and their love of repetition. Again! Again! Again! Anyway, I set out to beat him twice and both times he beat me. I don't know if it's that children have better short term memories or he was more focused and my mind was racing though the million things it races through (2 million when it's almost the end of my trip) or if it's simply because I'm dumber than a 5 year old Kenyan orphan, but I tried twice and both times I failed. I only beat him 1 time and I wasn't even trying to. I have no idea what to make of this.

Finally, being here is a daily dose of MacGyver. People just do things that make my jaw drop every day. They rip out wires by and and reconnect them to make things work. They pull out screws with their teeth. They can pick a lock with a nail. The ingenuity is mind boggling. I guess when you have to, you become much more resourceful. I often feel like someone who's given a circle peg and square peg and can't figure out which hole to put each piece in. I am given some bullshit tools (say a bundle of sticks) and told to sweep the patio. I just stare at them dumbfounded. They snatch it out of my hand and do it with a gusto that would render a Swiffer Wet Jet useless.

Ongeri and I worked on a puzzle right before I left. The schooling here is fucking horrible. They go from 7am to 5pm and half days on Saturday. They should all be rocket scientists given the amount of school. It's all taught by rote so they don't really learn much. But I don't think I'm going to get to spend much time with them tomorrow (my last day!) so I'm going to stay at Dickson as late as possible. Maybe like 8:30 or so. In which case I won't be able to post tomorrow because the internet cafes close at 8pm. We'll see what happens, but I may not have an update until I get to Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon (I think that's Wednesday morning for you guys). so, we'll talk Wednesday.