August 10, 2008
Flight to London
A woman just walked by me down the airline aisle wearing a cheetah print jacket, a matching suitcase and a cheesy t-shirt saying “I love Kenya.” To me, she looked absolutely ridiculous. To her, I probably look even more ridiculous.
I’m wearing a brightly colored shawl known as a kikoi wrapped around [...]
August 10, 2008
Flight from London to San Francisco
A few minutes ago I happened to glance out the airplane window and was startled to realize that below me was an image I had only previously seen printed next to disturbing newspaper articles about global warming. I’m on the flight from London to San Francisco and [...]
August 4, 2008
The man’s shirt was torn, allowing it to hang loosely from his protruding collar bone. The remaining bit of shirt did little to disguise a body that was plainly wasting away. His glassy eyes stared somewhere above my head; clearly he could no longer see. From one ear poured a small stream of [...]
July 31 2008
At around three in the afternoon I found myself standing under an overhang in a gas station, shoulder to shoulder with at least fifty Kenyans. It was raining hard so we had all come to the conclusion that wherever we had to be or whatever we had to do could wait until [...]
July 24, 2008
“You are going to make a horrible housewife.”
George said this maliciously, he was done joking and now wanted to end the conversation, saying something that he thought would offend me and shut me up.
He stared at me, confused, as I began to laugh.
“Why would I ever want to be a housewife? There’s [...]
July 21, 2008
Oh the irony of writing a post asking for money after I wrote a post talking about how much I hate being asked for money…Let me justify myself:
After my last post about how I didn’t get the grant for my biogas project, a bunch of people commented/emailed me asking if there [...]
July 20th, 2008
I get asked a lot of things. People ask me how I am, what my name is, if I’ll give them money, what my number is, if I can take them to America, if I’ll marry them, if I’m a missionary or if I’m here to “see the Big Five.”
That last [...]
July 8, 2008
In America I have this really bad habit of eating chocolate when I’m upset. Here, chocolate is a little harder to come by so I’ve substituted it with miniature bananas. These are very easy to get, you can buy them on the street from the women carrying them in huge baskets on top [...]
July 5, 2008
The other day Felix walked into the office where I was typing and started laughing. “What??” I fake glared at him.
“It’s just funny to see you eating that, you’re turning Kenyan!” he replied.
I was eating maziwa, a sort of sweet root that is supposedly a digestive aid/appetite stimulant/caffeine. I just like how it [...]
July 1, 2008
Today was the best use of $ 4 that I have ever made in my life: I bought the Obama song!!! Unless it has come to the states since I left, I doubt many of you have heard the Obama song. It is a reggae song with amazing lines such as
“well this is [...]
