Hujambo!

I know I’ve been out of communication for over a week, but it’s with good reason. I’ve been traveling all over Kenya for various goodbye parties, circumcision ceremonies, and Christmas celebrations. Here’s the breakdown:

• Saturday, December 20th: Maasai village called Enkokidongoi for a goodbye party for a few friends.
• Sunday, December 21st: Back to Tala to wash some clothes.
• Monday, December 22nd: Back to Nairobi to in order to leave early the next morning to Western Kenya for the Kulechos’ rural home.
• Tuesday, December 23rd: Mabanga, near the Ugandan border with cousins of the Kulechos because nobody was free to take me to the Kulechos’ farm.
• Thursday, December 25th: Finally to Chepsaita, where the Kulechos’ rural home is. Bunches of family and villagers were gathering for the slaughtering of a bull for Tash’s brother’s circumcision ceremony.
• Sunday, December 28th: Back to Nairobi in order to leave for Ethiopia on Monday.

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So my new phone has a camera, but you know how camera phone are. It’s no replacement for my digital camera that recently broke, but I can take pictures of bugs and stuff around the house. Now let’s play “Hii ni nini” (what is this)!

I found these in the market the other day. They’re everywhere and they’re cheap which means they’re in season right now I guess. I don’t remember seeing these in the market at this time last year, so maybe this is something special for Kenya, or at least Tala. I know the picture isn’t very good, but can you guess what they are? They’re not cherries, they’re… plums! Mini plums! I paid thirty Kenyan shillings (about fifty cents) for a big bag of them.
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Yesterday I was very sick. Today I went to the doctor and a blood test showed that I have plasmodium malariae. So now I am among the billions of malaria-infected people in the world. In retrospect it really wasn’t all that bad, just a lot of diarrhea. Other than the the obvious annoyance of having to run to the toilet every 20 minutes, the headaches, muscle pain, lack of appetite, and fatigue are pretty normal if you’ve ever had the flu or common cold.

I got a shot of quinine in my butt (ouch), and now I’m on anti-biotics for a few days. I feel better already; part of that was probably due to eating my first meal in twenty-four hours. I will go for more shots tomorrow and the next day and then I’ll be rid of this parasite forever. The good thing is that, according the Center for Disease Control, I am building up immunities to this parasite. Cool!
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I upgraded this blog to the latest Wordpress version (2.7). The only change that you’ll notice is a new “threaded comment” functionality which allows you to reply to other comments. I had to make some small tweaks to the site’s theme to enable the new comment stuff. I suppose this would also be a good time to post a link to my theme files just in case you’re interested in using it on your blog.

The theme is called “Gray Gets Green,” and it is originally by Fred Banuelos. When Wordpress 2.3 came out I went to his website to see if he would be updating the theme to work with 2.3’s new widget features, but he was missing in action. I added the widget support myself. Same story with Wordpress 2.7’s comment features. There’s no problems because he licensed the theme under the General Public License, which says that I can make and release my own changes to the code as long as I keep it licensed under the GPL. So here you go:

• Gray Gets Green 1.0: Original version from Fred Banuelos
• Gray Gets Green 1.1: Modified by me to add Wordpress 2.3 widget support
• Gray Gets Green 1.2: Modified by me to add Worpdress 2.7 threaded comment support

I’m home safely from Mombasa (read on). I spent the week wandering around Mtwapa, Nyali, and Mombasa itself while my friend Anique was at work. I’ve been to the coast before but I have never had as much fun as I did this visit! I don’t have any pictures because my camera is dead… pole sana (so sorry)!

• Salsa dancing lessons
• Swimming in the ocean for the first time since April
• Bus home to Nairobi being attacked by people with crude weapons
• Kid on beach bouncing a dead, but fully puffed, puffer fish
• Being in a matatu (public service bus / minivan / taxi thing) which got in two crashes, the second one after the conductor and the door operator were yelling at each other about the first one
• Browsing a spice market and being asked if I wanted to buy something that would let me “touch the sky”

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