Warm Coke, Cold Beer

Saturday June 4-Sunday June 5 2011

Every weekend Fadhili runs an outreach weekend which gives volunteers placed all over to get together and travel to a few different slums/camps together. A visit to Hell’s Gate National Park is also included in the weekend for relaxation. Well, one of the camps that is visited is Vumillia, and we got to see all of them on Saturday. It was nice to see everyone again…some of them I had stayed at Pastor Regina’s house with. We were all comparing our experience with our jobs and home stay. One girl was all like “I lucked out…I’m staying at Miss Lydia’s and we have hot showers and everything”. Bitch. I say that only kinda serious, because although it’s hard living where we are, it is still a great experience. One I should be grateful for. It’s just tough to be grateful when you’re squatting over a whole. But, this is definitely an authentic experience that I will never forget. And, it’ll be something I can guilt my kids with when they are complaining about nothing. It’ll go something like this, “Oh you don’t want to clean that toilet? Too bad. Just be grateful you have a toilet to clean! Why don’t we just fly over to Kenya and you can see where they go to the bathroom. Then I bet you’d be happy to clean this toilet”.

After the being with everyone at outreach Cat, Nicole, and I took a taxi in to Gilgil and booked a night at a little hotel to get away for a little (hot showers, anyone?). Our hotel rooms were only 700 shillings a night- you can’t beat that. After checking in we went down to check out a market we had heard about. Being in Gilgil is definitely an experience. It is a little town made up of mostly working class people and the streets are always busy with bikes, cars, matatus, and motor bikes. Also, people are selling things everywhere. I feel like we get stared at a lot more here than we did in Nairobi. It’s a really odd sensation to be walking down the street and know that EVERYONE is looking at you. It’s hard to describe the different looks you get; some of the kids look at you like they want something from you, other kids look at you like “wow there’s a white person” and they giggle with their friends when you say hi. Most adults give friendly looks, and some guys give creepy looks. It’s hard to know how to respond. Should you wave and say hi to those you pass? I sometimes wonder if the adults feel like we are patronizing them….like do we think we are special or something and they should be happy we are waving/saying hi to them? I don’t know…I don’t know how to explain it.

After the market we went back to the hotel and went to the bar. Nothing, including water, there was cold except alcohol so I ended up having a warm coke in a glass bottle. Blegh. The three of us hung out there for a while and then had dinner in the restaurant downstairs. It was SO good! We got a couple orders of chips (fries) masala and they were scrumptious! Good, fresh fries with masala sauce on top. Mmm. Then I got chicken masala and a samosa. Samosas are kind of like Kenyan empanadas…really good. And they are only 30 shillings or 50 cents. I am definitely going to get more of those next time! Sunday morning we found an internet café and spent around an hour there. It was nice to be able to connect with people again. Even though it had only been a week since arriving it had felt like much longer. I did so much and saw so many things in Nairobi, and then the journey to Gilgil…it seemed impossible that it could all fit in a week. Saturday Nicole looked at me and said, “I could go for a pizza right now”. My response; “I could go for a hot fudge sundae”. I have a feeling that in a few weeks when I’m back home I’m going to be saying “Mmm I could go for some samosas right now”. I’m going to miss this place.