a week's madness

Having had a week away from the internet, i have had many an idea about how to start this blog. but now i am just so grateful to be able to post after taking about half an hour trying to hack into my own blog. anyway, am here now, to confirm am still alive.

this past week was totally crazy...finishing university (still not sunk in) and then flying out to nairobi the following monday! My good friend tiff met me at the airport and then we went to the house where she has been staying for a month -- with a lady who used to volunteer with the organisation where we are also volunteering.

that same night we had dinner with a retired brigadier who we knew from zimbabwe when we were on our year out...first night in nairobi and i am eating at a swish restaurant, wine, homemade mozzarella, kingfish, good wine and coffee...the next day we headed to KENWA-- Kenyan Network for Women with AIDS. We went out to one of their drop-in centres in the field-- in a slum called Mathare.

We visited families to discuss their medications, their situations, and just to talk generally, to give them hope i think, though i was just listening; i think i was still on auto-pilot. there were about six of us visiting either single parents or whole families. we would crowd into their one room cramped house, welcomed to sit on the sofa or armchair that was somehow fitted in. normally this was opposite the bed where often the patient would be lying, with the lace curtain covering the bed lifted up. at the end of the visit, there is always a prayer said. the second day in the field it was my day to pray-- i have not prayed aloud in years, not that i have prayed silently very often...

there is so much to say, i wrote down so many details in my journal, planning what to say to people. typically now here i sit, slightly drunk from multiple g&t's and glasses of wine, at our friend the brigadier's house out in karen (named after the author of out of africa)...and everything merges together, flashes of sewage in the slums (what happens when it rains and the grey water floods into the houses?), then memories of trying to find a home for an orphan who has spent two years on the streets, only to have his own grandfather reject him and tell us to go, leave...

i am more and more struck by the enormity of everything i encounter. when you are small, your world is limited i think, well mine at least to a point. i mean, yes, i saw slums, opposite my elementary school, i saw beggars, lepers knocking on our car windows, but...now it's different, slowly you realise you are the same as anyone else, fighting for the good life. and being here, everything is so huge. while i sit here in one of the most beautiful houses i have ever seen, that woman we saw the other day is sleeping with her children. we bathed her the other day, leaning her forward to wipe her bottom as she can no longer move to go to the bathroom. in one city, so many stories, so many lives, such a range of problems and miserable sufferings. you end up being caught between your cynicism and your need to do something. you want to care for something, make it simple. but you know nothing will every really be that simple.

well i am not sure how much this entry has been informative and how much it has just been an opportunity for me to ramble on. it is good just to have the opportunity to describe what is happening as here your senses are so overwhelmed. my dreams have been crazy, of course with the occasional dream that mentions exams (yikes, two weeks now till results? they feel like another world away), but also with flashes from each day's scenes.

mzungu, mzungu! white person, white person. apparently derived from the swahili verb for 'to wander around aimlessly, like a mad person', similar to the noun for hangover. this gets called out to you constantly here, especially in the slum areas where white people are a rare sight (i made a baby cry even, just by my white skin and a shy wave!). occasionally when i am in town, i feel like replying, "No shit, Sherlock." But most of the time you accept someone just reminding you that you are white. in case i forget. and it does make me laugh anyway.

then there are the matatus...and their blaring rnb music. yesterday we were treated to the delightful melody of "oh, yes, fucking me now, fucking me now...' and so on. and the vehicle even had a tv screen where we could see the action....matatus if you don't know are minivan taxis that travel all over the city. if you know where to catch them and where you are going, you're set. though knowing what number to catch also helps. as each one stops, the conductor (ie guy who opens and shuts the door while half hanging out the door) yells something or other. most of the time it is as if they are advertising their destination, just in case at the last minute you changed your mind as to where you were going!

ok, i have to end here. this is scrappy, am blaming it on the gin. if you believe me, i say asante sana. and finally, a wee shoutout, happy birthday baby brother!

xx

ps for those of you who knew the plans before, we are no longer going down south. we'll stay in kenya and tanzanzia (mainly zanzibar je pense). so no worries (that's for you padre).