Yellow House

May 8, 2007

It is after midnight and I am not sure why I am awake. That is.. I have been asleep, albeit not for long. When I first awoke I just assumed that it was 3 am ish. Last night I was awake at this hour and I had the crack pot notion that maybe someone in a different time zone was thinking about me very hard (Ha!). I wished they wouldn’t do that while I am trying to sleep. I always think that there must be a reason I have fallen out of dream-state, and the latest and greatest conclusion probably comes directly from my current reading material. But it’s not 3, it’s 1:06 and here I am.

I returned to work to sad news. During break, my colleague’s 9 year old daughter was raped on the way to market by ‘a big man’. He is worried about the fact she has to be on prophalactic anti-retroviral medication and is unsure of their effect on her. I tried to be reassuring (about the drugs, not the event). I am glad that this horrible thing isn’t being treated like a big secret. There is guilt assumed in things no one talks about.

Kisumu’s the first district to do their teacher training. It starts Wednesday and I was impressed to return and see the preparation Silas and Caro had already done. Given they hadn’t yet received either the trainer or participant manuals I had worked on all month, they had reviewed and pulled together much information from the national workshop.

So 21 teachers will gather at YWCA in Kisumu and I will present less than a third of the material. More on all this later..

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Someone I know would say that when I am not blogging, that means I am actually living. But is this true? I feel like I have barely written a word this last two weeks, but I am not sure that I have lived more fully than when I do blog. The sad thing is Lamu has evaporated from me. The extent of what I managed to capture is below:

May 6, 2007

I am back in Nairobi. Well Kassarani. My home away from home. Lamu was wonderful. I had an undescribably nice time, but attempt to portray it I will.

Lamu was as hot as a mother-fucker. Now in my family using the f-word is the equivalent of throwing down a gauntlet but the girls and I tried out some other ‘hot as..’ phrases and they just didn’t measure up. “Hot like a volcano” “Hot as hell” (exceedingly creative huh?) “Hot as a blazing inferno” “Hotter than a Kenyan man playing soccer in the noon sun” “Chilli spicy tuna hot” (I do like this one) “So hot the devil himself would need a cold beer” (from the book Sarah’s reading at the moment). But no. None of these really describe how hot we were. All the time. Anyway.. We were in a constant state of sweatiness. When searching for accommodation, I looked at my friend and the only area of her t-shirt not wet was her breasts. Two dry triangles. Attractive no?

The days and nights whizzed by, and that wonderful feeling that there was no where else I would rather be settled on me. This was a sensation that visited me a lot last summer (especially in the Masai Mara), and it’s a place from which laughter flows easily.

~

Well. That journal entry was discontinued due to a very good reason. Namely the idea of breakfast at the Java house in downtown Nairobi, and you see, Lamu gone, poof.

But I do want to add one thing. And maybe if I get into the swing, another.. On Friday we went out on a dhow. I can’t recall exactly where we went (maybe Manda beach and to the Takwa ruins) but although I hadn’t been too excited about the prospects of the day, I literally spent hours in the ocean, and the remainder of the time sitting on the boat with my legs trailing in the sea. It was heavenly. Dhows are basically crude wooden sailboats that come with a band of young and probably high males to drive the thing. Okay, that’s unfair, their mellowness and the aroma of weed may be completely unrelated.

After a blissful day, Tanya, Soetinah, myself and Moiz (Kenyan now residing in Florida) disembarked and considered our evening plans. I had two separate offers unrelated to the girls but seeing as it appeared all Friday nights in Lamu end up at the A.P. (which stands for what I wonder?) anyway, I decided that I would just see where the evening took me.

So it went something like this.. beers at our guest house, a bean and chapatti dinner on the water front, more beer at Petley’s, then onto the A.P. The A.P. is on the outskirts of Lamu on the edge of sand dune as best I can tell. There is a $1 cover charge and it appears that you are entering a building, but you aren’t really. It’s more like an old farm courtyard, or an internally verandahed (is that a word?) enclosure. So you are there in this outdoor/indoor space, with the full moon and stars above you completely trumping the effect of the tentatively suspended disco ball.

The ratio of men to women in this establishment is approximately 25:1. For a woman the key is to just pick a guy and dance with him. We had the advantage this night of being accompanied by Moiz, our favorite waiter, and his adorable friend Musini. Swahili men dance differently to Luor men. Both groups move like the ocean, but on the coast it’s a whole lot more lively than in Western, the waves are choppier. There's a lot more body surfing. ha. This was an extra-ordinarily fun time. Oh.. and I fit into a favorite skirt I haven’t worn since 2001 – hallelujah!

Thursday night was really nice too now that I consider it. Moiz, Tanya, Soetinah and I (Sarah was unwell during this time frame.. in fact everyone, save myself was sick at one point or the other from undiagnosed issues) went for pre-dinner drinks at Lamu House. This nearly became no-dinner drinks as we realized it was 10 pm and everywhere was closed. Moiz did a reconnaissance mission and came back the waiter and his cute friend from Hapa Hapa, who took our order and told us we needed to get to the restaurant in 20 minutes so they could close. In return, I convinced the bar tender at Lamu Palace to sell us beers to take away on the promise of my first born that I would return the bottles.

Dinner was unmemorable, but then afterwards Tanya, myself, waiter, friend and Moiz found ourselves on coconut beach trying to figure out riddles. And here I am back in high school. As I read this it seems like a big drinking night, but no, I think it included a total of 4 beers over 6 hours. Anyway I mention this beach because it is basically a man made area of white sand that was the result of some dredging between the island mainland and in the light of the full moon it was a positively bright place to be. As my highly spirited friend calls it “moon baking”.

On a less good note.. Unbeknownst to me, that night Moiz was also offered money if he would talk to me about sleeping with some old guy for $200. Despicable. I don’t know which I dislike more, the fact that he suggested it, or the fact that he made Moiz my pimp all of a sudden. And having fully recovered from the general disgust I can only add that it has been 8 ½ years since I was offered money for sex and at least I have apparently gone up in value.

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Alright, to sleep. I have to go to the hospital tomorrow and see little ones. Thank you thank you for all your packages. The post office is like a laundry chute into my world. Of course, dirty garments would arrive faster than anything Kenyan post can deal with, but dumped into my lap came books and toys and toothbrushes and a beautiful new hat and I am so so very grateful. With much love. B xx