Kenya

Kenya, Rants

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)?

Animals, Kenya

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.

Kenya, Teaching

Two of my three classes finished today and they’ll take their exams next week. I didn’t have any failures last semester but this time around we had some irregularities. For instance, the students reported to school two weeks late! I don’t know why, but they did. The IT instructors had assumed this meant we’d have two weeks tacked onto the end of the semester but we were wrong to assume. When I thought we were halfway done with the semester we learned that we only had two weeks left. Ahhh! So I had to rush my last assignments, tests, and lectures, but I think I managed OK.

One metric I have is the number of students who correctly answer a certain question on my final test; last semester every student got it incorrect. I’m not sure what I did differently this time, but everyone got it correct. Woohoo! It’s a simple logic-based programming question and I ask them what the following code should print when it is executed: Continue Reading