Hujambo!

Lately a lot of people have been asking me for money, and it’s getting really annoying. Sometimes it’s, “give me twenty shillings” and other times it’s, “buy for me tea” or, “give me your bike.” I have so many experiences with this, nearly ten in the last two days, that I hardly even know where to start!

Today was a long day at work because my class wasn’t until after lunch, and then I talked for nearly two hours, waving my hands, writing on the board, breathing chalk dust, etc. After work I walked to the market to drink a cup of tea and eat a chapati. It’s only one and a half kilometers, but the hot African sun scorches my nose and neck and there’s a gauntlet of children yelling at me along the side of the road almost the whole way. Sometimes they yell, “Alan!” and other times it’s, “Mzungu!” or, “Wewe!” (Swahili for “you”). Even after you wave they keep yelling, and it’s really annoying when you’re walking with someone trying to have a conversation. The other day a rock/clod of dirt hit me in the face and I swear it was one of those kids (but I can’t prove it).
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If you own a restaurant or store and you’re planning to sell cold drinks, Coca Cola will give you a free refrigerator. I guess it’s a good deal but there’s one condition: you can only stock Coca Cola products in the fridge. Sure, Coca Cola’s product line includes something for everyone (even water, Dasani!), but don’t even think about sticking a 7-up or a left-over hamburger in there, man! I’ve been paying attention for a few weeks now and I can’t remember seeing this rule violated. Certainly, the little store at our college has a small fridge and you’d never catch us stocking it with anything but Coca Cola products. The same goes for all the cafes I frequent in Tala.

I wonder what the consequence is if you get caught with an Alvaro (soda from East African Breweries), a Red Bull, or a 7-up in your Coca Cola fridge? Who knows, but it cracks me up to think about the plethora of laws broken every day all over Kenya. To name a few:

• Urinating in public (possibly even on the “No Peeing” sign)
• Littering! (usually next to the “Keep Kenya Clean” sign)
• Smoking in public (yes, it’s illegal)
• Carrying extra passengers in matatus (public transport vehicles)
• Bribing police

It’s pretty comical, but is the Coca Cola man really that scary? Could an encounter with the big, bad Coca Cola man be worse than a fine for peeing on a wall? What about being sent to jail for stealing (or worse, mob justice)?

I guess it’s not really a “problem,” but I usually find interesting/strange things to read on Wikipedia. For instance, I stumbled upon this gem the other day while doing some casual reading about the universe:

“…the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are approaching one another at a speed of 100 to 140 kilometers per second (62-87 miles/s.; 223,200-313,200mph). The impact is predicted to occur in about 2.5 billion years.”

So our galaxy, the Milky Way, is going to collide with another galaxy. Another fun fact about the Milky Way is its diameter: comprising 200-400 billion stars, the Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light years wide. If you convert that to miles it’s 587,849,981,000,000,000, a number so big I don’t even know what to call it (what comes after “trillion?”).

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I’m in the market for a new TV show. I have been watching Arrested Development for the past eight months and I’m starting to get sick of it. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve watched all three seasons in order at least twice (not to mention two or three times in America), and now I just pick a random episode from a random season when I want to “watch TV.” I like Arrested Development because it manages to be intelligent and hilarious at the same time. I want you people to suggest a new TV show for me to watch.

Here’s the criteria:

• Must have at least three seasons (what good is a one-season TV show?)
• No reality shows (Survivor, Dancing with stars, etc)
• No CSI, sorry!

I don’t know much about TV shows current or past, but for some reason I think Gilmore Girls must be a good show, though I can’t say I’ve seen more than two episodes. Can anyone help me out?

In other news, I found a huge, hairy spider in my hallway today. My camera bit the dust so I don’t have a picture for you. I don’t know if we have tarantulas here, but this thing was so big and hairy that it gives me the willies just thinking about it, do you have a mental picture now?! I’ve dealt with several other spiders, a snake, and a scorpion, but this was just too much. I called the sisters in the convent and they sent their cook, Johnson, over to help me out. I’ve never seen such a nonchalant act of violence as the way this man stepped on this spider. Thanks, Johnson!

Update (9 pm): Merely one hour after the spider incident I found a huge snake ON TOP OF MY REFRIGERATOR. Johnson has gone home and I can’t just whack this snake like a spider. I may not survive this night. It was nice knowing all of you.

Update (10 pm): Chased the snake out of the house only to enter the kitchen some minutes later to find a rather large scorpion. Squished.

Update (next day, 4 pm): Dropped by the house on my way to the market and found the snake in the living room. The snake is now outside of the living room but missing its head.

I just saw an article in Science Daily which talks about a “Digital Dark Age.” The introduction sums up the idea:

“What stands a better chance of surviving 50 years from now, a framed photograph or a 10-megabyte digital photo file on your computer’s hard drive?”

The article mentions 8-inch floppy disks as an example. Remember those, from the 1980s and ’90s? They were the floppy disks which were actually “floppy,” not those 3.5-inch ones some old people still use today. The “floppy disks” of this era are CDs, DVDs, and flash disks, and you may not foresee them going away any time soon, but it’s inevitable; what happens when those are phased out for “newer, better” storage formats? The year is 2020: where will you find somewhere to plug in your now-ancient USB flash disk (let alone your circa-2001 floppy disk)?
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