Kenya, Rants

The college where I work runs a small Internet café, and people from Tala and the surrounding areas come to browse the net. I always see people checking their e-mail, browsing Facebook, etc, but about once a month I see someone applying for military contracting jobs with companies like Blackwater and KBR. I don’t know whether I’m more disturbed that Kenyans are applying to go make money murdering people in Iraq, or the fact that United States companies are hiring people from developing countries to fight their battles.

These guys never even ask for help. They just come sit on the computer and go right to where they’re going. It’s like the word on the street is that you can get rich quick if you go to Iraq. Most of this stuff happened during the Bush era, so I don’t even know if these companies are even hiring anymore. I do know that at one time there were more private military contractors in Iraq than actual US Army dudes. Like 180,000 of them or something. Private militaries! Are you kidding me? These companies have their own helicopters, tanks, armored cars, guns, etc… it’s ridiculous. Just go google around and you’ll see stories talking about stuff like how, for example, Blackwater mercenaries are better-equipped and better-paid than US Army troops. Not to mention they have zero accountability (who does a private contractor take orders from?).

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Food, Kenya

Haha, actually, computer bugs suck, and even Linux crashes. Anyways, the ATM in Tala had this error on the screen the other day when I was getting some money. It was working fine, just a little slower than normal. I even got a chance to practice Swahili with a mama (mama is a respectful word for a woman, pronounce it like in Spanish, with the accent on the second “a”). When I left the booth I tried to explain to her that it was broken, but only a bit, and that it was still working: imeharibika kidogo, lakini inafanya kazi. She looked a bit puzzled so I reassured her that I had withdrawn money, but that the machine was working slowly. She seemed relieved, so I hope it worked… I didn’t stick around to see if she was successful.

On a side note, I’m cooking some fried rice with enough cilantro to kill a horse. Just another Friday night alone in Tala… good thing I have Linux and death metal.

Animals, Kenya

Ugh! This morning I was rudely awakened by a big, stupid bird making a racket on my roof. I looked around the web and apparently it’s a Pied Crow, by the way. I have a roof made of aluminum and these stupid birds love to party up there. They are neither beautiful to look at nor lovely to listen to. They are only annoying as hell. I don’t know what kind of dance moves he was working on this morning, but I was just trying to catch some last Zs before work and the noise was so loud. I jumped out of bed yelling all sorts of bad words, rushing to see if I could catch a peek at what was going on. Unfortunately, by the time I opened the door he had heard me and flown away.

This is not the first time. They even go collecting things from my compost pit and take them up there to hang out and eat a nice meal. One time I heard something rolling down the roof, so I ran outside just in time to see an egg shell hit the ground (a chicken egg shell I had thrown, not like “awww, poor baby crow never had a chance…”). What the hell? Anyways, other favorite moves of theirs are dive bombs; they just get a lot of speed and land on the roof with everything they’ve got. Whaaaaam! Ahhh!! And it always happens at the worst time (like when you just want FIVE more minutes of sleep).
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