Hujambo!

Well I’m home from my East African tour now.  It feels good to be back in Tala after fifteen days of absence, especially since I estimate I’ve sat on five or six buses for a total of around fifty hours in the last two weeks.  I was happy to see that everything was still in order at the college when I returned.  My students are supposed to come to school next Monday, but they always take their time so I don’t know when I will actually have to start teaching.  It’s OK, this is Africa, everything is pole pole (slowly slowly)!

Our adventure started in Tanzania, where we visited the town of Arusha and then immediately hopped on a thirteen hour bus ride to the Lake Victoria port town of Mwanza.  Tanzanians don’t speak very much English so I had to rely on my elementary Swahili.  We had a good time exploring the town and especially seeing the ocean-like lake there.  The lake is 26,000 square miles in total, so it’s really like looking at the Pacific Ocean from the beach in San Diego.  I’ve never seen Lake Tahoe or that big one in Michigan, but I assume it must be a similar feeling as you’d get if you peered across those.  Buses going from Mwanza to Rwanda were few and far between so we spent a few extra days killing time in Mwanza. The bus ride to Rwanda was terrible of course, as western Tanzania is a remote wasteland with ridiculous dirt roads. It’s also just really far away from everything!
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What’s a teacher supposed to do when class is over, final exams have been marked, and final grades have been sent in?  Vacation!  So I’m off to Uganda with my friend Sureel by way of Tanzania and Rwanda starting on August 1st.  I have about three weeks before I have to start teaching again, so if I fanya haraka (do it fast) I can be back in ten or twelve days.  Half of the adventure is the journey, I know, but I do have a few specific stops in mind:

• Mwanza province in Tanzania to eat some fish and see Lake Victoria which, in addition to being the source of the Nile, is 26,000 square miles. Wow!
• The genocide museum in Rwanda.
• Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda (where the infamous Idi Amin had a house).

So don’t freak out if you call me in the next two weeks and my phone is “disconnected,” I’ll be back soon! Adios, amigos!

By now you know I’m not a traditional Kenyan man: I cook the food, clean the house, buy the vegetables, AND wash the clothes.  I will admit that the cleaning is a pain in the ass (due to the “African” broom) and the washing is tedious, but the cooking is good fun.  There is something so relaxing about coming home after work, especially when I don’t have a lecture the next morning, and preparing a nice, fresh meal. I cook anything from country potatoes to githeri (Kenyan staple of corn and beans) to Indian-inspired lentil curries. I’ve even picked up some new tools of the trade!

You can see my “jiko” in the pictures; it is basically a charcoal BBQ. The jiko is nice because some things need to simmer for a LONG time and the charcoal is much cheaper than boiling on my gas stove. Also, the two frying pans which came with my house were absolute crap.  You know the kind: you have to cook one more egg than you’re hungry for because, no matter how much oil you use, one egg always remains on the pan.  I was holding off on upgrading because I didn’t know how to dispose of the old ones, but recently I found out the locals collect scrap metal for recycling.  I think they get a couple hundred shillings (around $5) for a kilogram.  It may not sound like much money but every little bit counts here, and it saves my conscience because I was already losing sleep about the thought of burying them in my backyard!

So I may have to deal with man-eating spiders and slimy snakes, but at least I’m eating good food! I have some hashed browns, toast, and eggs cooking on my new non-stick pan as we speak! Until next time, take care!

I thought I saw something the other night (I even tried to poke it), but now I’m sure… there’s a snake living in and or above the front door of my house. When I saw it a few nights ago it was high above my door in some little crevice in the bricks of my house. I know it’s a small little thing, but maybe it was hunting that huge, furry spider from earlier this week. I know you guys wouldn’t believe me unless I had hard evidence, so I snapped a quick photo.

I never knew snakes could climb on vertical rock walls and, unless it’s a snake/lizard hybrid, I am actually stumped as to how it got there. On a related note, I had a large stick insect on my curtain tonight as well. I don’t know what’s with the influx of creepy, crawly, slithery things lately, but maybe my prayer flags are just doing their thing. I’ll have you know that, other than shooing the spider and poking the snake, none of these critters have been harmed.

Peace!

We have lots of big animals in Africa, like lions, giraffes, hippos, etc. Well I have discovered a new tourist attraction in my very home: a man-eating spider was waiting above my front door when I came home tonight. As you may recall, this isn’t the first time I’ve had such an encounter… As I type the spider is staring at me, licking its lips, and I’m staring at the broom I’m going to use to whack the hell out of it.

I don’t usually kill them, but I just can’t take any chances with this one. I’m already freaked out when I enter a room and turn the light on, open a closet, put on a sweatshirt, slip into bed, or mess with the curtains. If it’s not a spider it’s a lizard, and if it’s not a lizard it’s a wasp; one time I even had a bat flying around inside the house when I got home at night. Oh, and don’t forget the dogs that run after me when I’m riding home after dark!

I can’t remember where they said the “Final Frontier” was, but Africa’s pretty frontiery… if you know what I mean. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go shake all my clothes, move everything away from the walls, and change my bed sheets. Africa is not for the faint of heart!