The church compound is maybe an acre or so. It consists of a good-sized church building, a building with a few Sunday school rooms and an apartment, a building with one Sunday school room and a covered area, and a small residential building. There is room in the yard for games; there is a basketball court and a little metal monkey-bar type play set. Also there is a latrine and a guard shack. There are some pretty sizeable water collection tanks that save the rain water that runs off the roofs, for later use because there is no city water service. And, as with many building and "real" houses here, most of the grounds are surrounded with a brick wall. There is a portion out by the basketball court that is chain link fence, through which you can see a mud triplex in the next lot.
I was so overwhelmed by all the activities and experiences of the day, I think it best to just hit some highlights and maybe expand on
a few. So here goes:
- Only about 80% of the kids had shoes at all, and of those that did, I'd say about 85% wore flip-flops. At least one had mismatched flip-flops. I only saw one pair of socks.
- Kids came in for Sunday school first; they were very interested in the wazungu (white people). They were especially interested in the mzungu (white person) with the cameras. I filled up at least one 512Meg card and had to download it as I took 250-300 photos that day. As the day went on, the kids were more and more eager to get their picture taken and loved it when I would flip the viewfinder screen around so they could see themselves.
- Some of the smaller kids were more tentative of the white people.
Some were downright scared and would cry when I looked at them (kinda reminded me of home).
- They liked to feel our arms because they were soft, with the hair on them. They also liked to rub our heads to feel our hair. Most of them had very short, course hair (even the girls). I guess it is so brittle that it usually won't grow long.
- One thing that stood out was how older siblings would bring and take care of younger siblings. There were 9-10 year olds caring for youngsters (down to maybe 6 months old). There were 5 to 7 year olds watching and carrying younger siblings. They would care for them, take them to the choo (toilet), fix their buttons, keep them close in lines and put their arms around them to keep track of them. I saw many a time where a 2 or 3 year old would fall asleep and another child, maybe 7, would pick them up (on their back or over their shoulder) and head out of the gate and down the dirt road toward home, sometimes carrying the sleeping child's flip flops so they didn't get lost.
- They really seemed to enjoy coloring also. It is a treat for them, even if the crayons are just small pieces (the crayons we brought were still in lost luggage land). They were excited to show me what they had colored and, as soon as I knelt down to look at one, they all flocked and I had to look at each one and smile. Some of these kids were boys and a little older, maybe 10ish, but still wanted me to see the whale they had colored.
- There were a lot of worn, torn and tattered clothes. Some of the girls' dresses had broken zippers down the back, so they would just keep adjusting them. Some were just the short zipper at the top. But I also saw a broken zipper that went all the way down the back, and you could see her underwear. She would still play the games and just seemed happy to be "dressed up for church". Another kid was carrying his sister, when he went to put her down I could see that she wasn't wearing anything underneath her dress. He smoothed out her dress, took her hand and led her into church. I still get tears in my eyes thinking about those kids. But it seems to be me feeling sorry for them, more than them feeling sorry for themselves. They seem to be content because they have not known any other way. They really seemed to enjoy hanging around the church and especially playing games.
- Even if they didn't know any better. I couldn't help but feel sorrow for all the lost childhood joys. It seems to me that these kids are being forced to grow up way too early and given too much responsibility. I was amazed at how well they did taking care of the youngsters, not picking on them or bullying them. Caring for them and holding them as they sleep. It was awesome to see them be able to play games. They loved the competition and would rejoice loudly when they would win. They would run around barefoot on the rocky ground. I just cannot explain the joy they showed in the midst of the life they live.
- The kids were very familiar with the handshake and most knew "how are you?” even if they didn't speak English. They would emphasize the "you"; "How are YOU?” They would smile as they held out their hand for a shake. I think, and maybe I am wrong, but I think they were extra exited to see that white people were willing to shake their hand and ruffle their hair. They were also aware of "bumping the rock", you know, greeting each other with clenched fists (the friendly way). They didn't seem to have ever seen the slap/slide/rock greeting. But once shown it, they were all too happy to try it over and over. I started it in one of the lines and then I had to go down the entire line and get everybody, some multiple times. They would all smile really big because they now knew how to do it. The following day, some of the boys came up and made sure to do it again, grinning like they knew the secret handshake or something.
- Another thing that amazed us all was the team from Kisumu Baptist Church. They were all young 16-23ish. They were all bilingual (or more) and were the leaders of the church. The pastor was probably a bit older, but still in his 20s (?) and I found him very dynamic, even when he was speaking Swahili. These young people led Sunday school, preached and helped run the church. They were incredible.
- During the day, I kept putting the camera away because I'd already taken too many pictures. But I also kept getting it back out, because I would see something else that I never wanted to forget.
- We sure did attract a lot of attention, a carload of white people. Right after VBS, we went to eat at a Chinese restaurant. We had to be pulled away from the kids. They just wanted to hang around afterwards. They wanted to touch our skin, touch our hair, but most of all; they wanted their picture taken. When we got to the restaurant, I had to take the laptop and both cameras in so they didn't get stolen. After we had finished eating, we bagged up all the leftovers. Outside the restaurant, we could see a small group of homeless boys, ages in the 9-13 range or so. One of our guys gave
them our leftovers; they came running to meet him, and then scampered off into the darkness.
- I've heard many statistics and seen many more online, they aren't always exactly the same, but all tell a similar story: 50% of the population in Kenya is under 18 years old. As opposed to the US, where half the population acts like they are under 18. Estimates say that in 10 years, if things don't change, 70% will be less than 15 years old. The main problem: disease, more specifically: AIDS. Forty percent of the adults in Kisumu are carriers of HIV. There are other diseases also, two of the Kisumu team contracted malaria while we were there. They were lucky enough to get drugs (many can't) and were able to get feeling better.
- More statistics: 50-60% unemployment, those that do have jobs, average 4000 shillings a month, that's about $50 a month.
The first full day here was very interesting and somewhat overwhelming. The kids were great, they really made me long to hug my own little girls, very tightly. Everybody, including adults, was very polite.
Overall impression: An entire culture going down. Sounds harsh, but with so much adversity, where else could they go. They don't need to live like we do, but they do need to change some of their ways, some of their living conditions. I am both saddened by their plight and, at the same time, given hope from their innocent contentment.
OK, what's with all the deep intellectual stuff?
Onward to Monday...
On Monday morning a couple of us went next door. There is an outreach center there called "Into Africa". They take homeless boys in off the street and try to help them become self-sufficient. We got there as they were doing their morning devotions. They were meeting in a three walled metal shed; there were about 25 boys. They looked like fairly normal Kenyan boys, a little older than the kids from VBS, probably in their teens. They all had been living on the streets and each had their own sad stories to tell. After the devotion time, they went off to their classes. They had classes on site, as you can imagine, some were pretty illiterate when they came here. There was just two classes; beginning and advanced. Each class would cover multiple subjects (readin', writin', 'rithmatic). You could see emptiness in their eyes, but I think that there was also a bit of pride coming through.
These boys are here by choice, maybe not much of a choice, and maybe other people's choices put them in this position, but they could leave anytime they wanted to. But they stayed, to learn. While they were in class, I had a chance to tour the grounds on my own. Around back of the schoolroom was the boys' dorm, or whatever you want to call it. It was a brick building with cement floors. It had a bathroom, a shower and three bedrooms. That was all the rooms it had, no living room, kitchen, or dining room. The boys ate outside on a patio with a metal roof. The bedrooms were small; the first two rooms each had 3 bunk beds in them (to sleep 6 in each room). However the rooms were so small, that there were no doors and you would need to crawl onto the middle bunk just to get into the room and then crawl over to one of the other bunks. The third room was a little larger, but contained 7 bunk beds with a little walkway from the door to the bunks in the back. No closets, no dressers, no chairs, no toys, no gadgets, no privacy. But it was nonetheless a step up from the street.
Meanwhile, back at home base, we still didn't have our luggage, but as each day passed, I was coming to realize that it wasn't really that important anyway. We were mostly concerned with the bags that contained some supplies and gifts for VBS. The one suitcase that did make it was the one containing a bunch of tortillas we brought for the missionaries and also the medical bag that a doctor from church had filled with supplies and drugs and anything we may have needed for a medical situation.
We did decide to go and buy some new clothes though; mainly because we needed something to wear while we painted the extra apartment at the church. I got a couple shirts, some shorts and some fancy new shoes. And just for the record, I also purchased some underwear. They didn't have any normal briefs. They had some boxers, some bikini thingy's, some brief-shorts thingy's and some things that looked like a cross between the shorts that NBA players wore during the 70s and something Ma Walton would wear. Anyway, I will just leave it at that....
Just when I thought I'd seen deprived living conditions; we took a drive through the slums. We turned off the paved road onto a dirt "road", it was more like a path or a trail, and not many cars come down this way. The first thing I noticed, other than the trash all over, is what looks like a sewage puddle in the middle of the road. It stretched for a block or so down the dirt road. We drove right through it. I am told that this "neighborhood" is about 1mile wide and 1.5miles deep and that 100,000 people live here.
This place is virtually indescribable (for me anyway), but I'll try briefly:
We drove between little mud huts, shacks and shanties. There was little or no running water, no electricity. Kids would look because of the sound of the car. I took a picture of a boy standing in a garbage mound, while a couple different spots were still smoldering maybe a yard from his bare feet. At the same time, you could hear a child crying in the distance. He had turned and run, crying, when he saw the carload of white people pull up. In the midst of all this, we came to the spot we were looking for, a very non-descriptive, odd-shaped lot (because the paths were not laid out straight) that the new Victory Baptist Church was going to be built on. One of the Kisumu team is going to pastor it.
After lunch we headed back to VBS. The kids were happy to be back and seemed exited to see us. The kids were separated into three groups. Not by age, but by language. There was English (the smallest group), Lao (pretty big group) and Swahili (the largest group). Although this enabled the older kids to take care of their siblings, it also had some disadvantages. They all seemed to do well during lesson time and while singing (worship time), but during game time, I felt sorry for two different groups of kids:
1) The older ones that had to keep an eye on their brothers and sisters instead of concentrating on the game, and
2) The younger ones that couldn't understand or were too small to participate in the games. As the week went on, and there were more of the young kids, someone would try to entertain them while the older ones were playing. I tried to help out with this a few times and it was kinda difficult. Especially when you don't speak the same language. I tried to use hand motions, but, again, a different culture will not necessarily understand that either. I tried to get them to scoot back (I was doing the old "pushem back" hand signals) and form a line behind a certain point (I was tapping my foot where I wanted the line to start and trying to simulate a line with my hands); they would just start mimicking me. Before too long, it looked like I was leading the whole group in the hokey-pokey.
Our team was kinda starting to get that "how can we help these people" mindset. We had some good discussions and there were very good intentions, however, I don't see us having nearly the power or influence needed to solve the situation. I am not in the least saying that they should be written off, but it would take a lot of fully committed people a long time to see any progress.
We finally got email today. That is a strange thing to comprehend also. There is so much poverty and destitution, but we can still email half way around the world. Not without problems. I had emailed home the day we arrived, but the server was down and the email wasn't able to go out until today. I was one of two team members who received emails today, it was very exciting and just nice to hear from family.
Speaking of hearing from home, the night before I left, my wife (no names please) had given me a bundle of envelopes. There was one for each day and they were labeled on the outside by days. Each day I would get to open one of the envelopes. Inside each one was a note from either family or friends. This was an awesome idea. I looked forward to this each day, to see who they were from and, if I liked the person, I'd read the note. Actually, I think I read them all anyway. I really appreaciated the time and thoughts put into them, they were great. Some were even a bit humorous, some were more serious. Some tried to be funny, but weren't (you know who you are).
I wore my new shoes to VBS today. The soles are very thin; I guess maybe my feet are a bit wimpier than the Kenyans. They were so thin I could push the soles in with my fingers. I've had socks that were thicker than these soles. Next time, I think I will just put a baggie around each foot and call it good. What do you expect for 695 shillings? My feet were sore by the end of the day. Hey, what was the phone number to that "Sole Mates" place?
Tuesday:
We got started scrubbing walls and ceilings, spackling and painting the apartment today, nothing to exciting about that. I did get to wear my new clothes though. Actually, I was so tired of the shirt I'd been wearing all week; I wore it, hoping to get paint on it so I would never have to wear it again.
We saw someone riding a camel down the street. Hmmm, that's something you don't see everyday. The last time I saw something that ugly going down the street, it said Pontiac Aztec on the side and had an Ozzy Ozborne clone behind the wheel.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Africa Part 3 of 10
Seeing how we left late, it was getting dark and I was not able to view much of Nairobi from the plane. But we landed and got through the first customs counter, which took about 30 minutes despite the fact that we were able to snake into a short line that had apparently gotten overlooked in the mess of other lines. Next stop; the baggage carousel. There were three distinct belts and all were moving. There weren't any clear markings to say which was ours. After a bit of watching, I spotted the shiny, multi colored ribbons that shouted, hey-this-is-one-of-ours, on a suitcase. I pulled it off and figured that was proof enough that this was the right carousel. Well, that feeling didn't last. After watching for a half hour or so, along with everyone else on our team, no more bags had been located. Hmmm, I checked the other carousels again and again....
There was no rush of suitcases, as the volume was slowing and we were not seeing ours, so I decided to hit the local restroom. Well, here is where I have already noticed a difference in cultures. In London, it's not the "Men's Room", the "Powder Room" or the "Restroom". It's not even the "Lavatory"...it's the "Toilet" and that's the way it is labeled.
Here in Nairobi, it is also different. First of all, there was a label: "WC" with a lady symbol (dress) and arrow one direction, and the men symbol and arrow the other direction. WC, hmmm, that could stand for any number of things. Waste Chute, Water Contamination or even Wapi Choo (Swahili for "Where is the Toilet"). Regardless of what it meant, I figured I would follow the arrow by the man symbol and see if it was indeed a "toilet". Well, I found it, the door was propped wide open, and it smelled like... well it smell's like a WC. The urinal was of the trough variety. Made out of stainless steel (however, this one was stained), and a bunch of smelly, moth-ball-type "sanitizers" thrown in for good measure. There was a small step directly in front of it.
Now, I'm not entirely sure, but this was either a small step intended to be stood on while using the WC or maybe it was just their way of creating a barrier to keep the ...liquids... off the main floor. Either way, because the door was open and standing on the floor would leave me in full view of anyone walking by, I opted for the step theory. When using any of these flat against the wall, multi-user contraptions, you start to appreciate the privacy of the single position urinal along with the, umm, shall we say "splatter reducing qualities" of its curvature. My main objective was to get out of there before some careless Kenyan came in, in which case I may have needed a new pair of shoes even before getting out of the airport. I think we have carried this line of thought a little too far, so I will stop for now, but I reserve the right to bring it up again at a later time.
As another hour ticked by and the carousels, and the airport, were thinning out, we started to form the conclusion that something was amiss. Out of the 16 checked bags, we had only gotten one of them, not very good odds. Well, our Nairobi travel agent met us at the airport and was able to facilitate and translate when necessary. We each had to fill out a form for the missing luggage. Including having to basically look through luggage mug shots to identify what type of luggage it was.
So, let me get this straight, if I put multiple labels on the outside of my bag, a label on the inside of my bag, and you put destination tags all over it, you cannot get it to Kenya. But, if I tell you that I had a black suitcase similar to mug shot 22A along with the color of my underwear, you think you can find it anywhere in the world???
Waiting in line and filling out paperwork for everybody took approximately an hour and a half (yeah, that long). Then, about 12:30 or so in the morning, after about 30 hours of travel, we finally got out of the airport for our first real taste of the Kenya climate. It was very pleasant, not nearly as muggy as I had imagined.
We piled into a couple of taxi type vans and, after a stop at a convenience store for a snack, got to the guesthouse. Although we were only there for five or six hours it was nice to get cleaned up and get a nap. I also seized this opportunity to test my whole "toilet-draining" experiment. For those of you who have not followed my scientific dossiers: I've always heard that below the equator, the toilet water would swirl down the drain in the opposite direction when compared to the toilets in the US, or anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere (excluding the poles and certain other areas in which water would just freeze and not swirl at all).
So as not to create any undo assumptions or break through any comfort levels, I waited until the other guys were out of the room before I grabbed my video camera and headed to the bathroom. As soon as I opened the lid, I sensed what may be a problem, no, it didn't need to be flushed. The problem being that the bottom of the toilet bowl was a large opening where the water sat. When flushed, the water just filled up the hole and kinda garbled there. The water level would stay about the same and the old water would just kinda go out the back opening, which was as wide as the entire flat part (not really draining down at all). So, basically, there was no swirling at all, this was not suitable for the experiment, so I had to settle with filling up a sink with water, and then pulling the plug.
For those interested in my theory on this alleged phenomenon, please read on. For those of you, who are not interested in my theory, skip this paragraph. Actually "don't care" folks can just skip to the bottom, because if this doesn't interest you, I'm sure none of my little observations, experiences and occasional wise cracks will interest you either. Thanks for stopping by, I trust you can find your own way out!
Back to my conclusions: None of these have been scientifically proven right or wrong, so please read responsibly.
1) Toilets in the US swirl either way, depending on which way the water is introduced into the bowl and, to a smaller extent, internal currents from multiple causes, including, but not limited to, contents.
2) A sink full of water in the US will swirl either way depending on many influences, such as shape of sink, size and shape of drain, momentum caused by internal or external forces, etc.
3) The same is true for toilets and sinks anywhere in the world.
Summary: Hogwash! Although it sounds cool, and somewhat logical, that the earths spin will cause water to drain in different directions, drains are way too small to actually be effected by the Earth spinning.
So there you have it, I traveled half way around the world and failed to prove anything. However, FYI, on a larger scale, things such as hurricanes, do rotate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
End of experiment.
Where was I? Oh yeah, headed to Kisumu (without luggage). We headed out from the guesthouse to the airport, and as soon as we got past the gate and out to the main road, I noticed people walking. Not just a few people walking, like a LOT of people walking. Like thousands and thousands of people walking. It was like New York City without the sidewalks, buildings or yellow cabs. It was like the Boston Marathon but slower and without the colorful outfits, or the skinny little Kenyan guy in the lead... uh, well, maybe he was there, but you know what I mean. It was like rush hour without the cars or public transportation. Speaking of rush hour, with walking being slower, they probably have a rush-3hour or so.
Possible morning traffic report:
"All roads look great and there are no vehicle crashes to report. However, there is congestion BESIDE Main Street all the way into and beyond the center of town. We are just receiving reports of an injury accident BESIDE 3rd street. It seems a group of teens walking North on their way to school suddenly had a change of heart, spun around and headed south. Taking some northbound women by surprise. One of the women, returning from the market, dropped the load of bananas from atop her head. This set off a chain reaction in which up to 12 pedestrians, slipping on the peels, fell and sustained various injuries. Be advised to take an alternate route, but if you cross the street, be sure to look right, left, right.... (They drive on the left side of the road).
This traffic report brought to you by Sole Mates. At Sole Mates, we can install brand new sole covers so you can get more mileage from your shoes. Walk with confidence. Stop by your local Sole Mates today... "
Gosh where was I, oh yeah, trying to describe how many people were walking. Let me put it this way, if I had two bucks for every person that was walking, I'd barely have enough to put $1 into each hand of each person walking. Anyway, bottom line: there were a lot of people walking. I'm kind of assuming here, but I think the fast food restaurants might have walk-thru windows instead of drive-thrus.
Now, if you will let me continue....
In keeping with our airline tickets/baggage problems, once we got to the airport, we had trouble checking in because we had no hard copy tickets. After a minor delay at the ticket counter, and having some tweezers confiscated at security, we got through and went to sit in the waiting room. While sitting there, I got to thinking. I wanted
to be as safe as the next guy, but tweezers? Come on, what's the hijacker going to do with those?
"Well you can tell the tower that unless they release Mohammad by noon, I will begin plucking your eyebrows. Then I will continue to pluck the eyebrows of one passenger every 10 minutes after that."
Across the way, I noticed the restroom (I knew it was the restroom because the door was wide open). As I walked in, I got a dejavu experience, and was instantly reminded of the house of an elderly woman for whom I did yard work for years while in college. She was a very nice lady, but lived alone (with her 6 cats). Apparently she suffered from mottephobia (The fear of moths), because most of her house smelled like moth balls (and the rest of the house smelled like hair balls). After shaking that thought out of my head and checking all three stalls for toilet paper, and finding none, I decided to just use the trough for now. Well, at least I didn't see any moths in there....
We walked out to the plane and had another minor delay as each of our carry-ons had to be checked in with the dude outside the plane, because they would not fit in the overhead bin. He felt the need to hand write each of us baggage claim tickets even though we would just grab our bags as we got off the plane in Kisumu. This was Kenya Airways, it was a smaller plane, one seat in each row on the left and two on the right.
It was a shorter flight (about an hour and a half), then we finally reached our final destination, Kisumu, Kenya. As I walked off the plane and grabbed my "nearly carried-on", I noticed that we were the only plane at the airport. We had to walk from the tarmac through the chain link gate and to the parking lot. It was quick and easy, due to lack of luggage.
Once at the house, we had a little time to get settled which, again, didn't take much time without luggage. Then we met the team from Kisumu Baptist Church (KBC) for lunch. Each team member from Kisumu was paired up with a team member from Broadway. The Kisumu team was one short, so one was paired up with two of us from Broadway. I didn't want to miss out on getting acquainted with a Kenyan, but this worked out good, because I would be frequently wandering around taking pictures anyway.
They all seemed welcoming and nice to talk to. We had BBQ chicken and, although I've never been a fan of snapping veins off chicken bones, I couldn't help but notice how they would totally clean all the meat (and anything else) off the bone. We had time to talk to each other a bit and learn a little about each other, and then they left on foot and bike (no cars among them).
Sunday, August 8th, was a long day. I woke up at about 6am local time, so seemed to be over the time difference. This was our basic schedule for the day:
9:30 - 10:45 Sunday School
11:00 - 12:30 Church Service
1:00 - 2:30 Lunch
3:00 - 6:00 VBS
6:30 - 8:00 Dinner Out
Well, no major decision had to be made on what to wear; I only had two shirts. One was my, heavy rugby type I mentioned earlier and the other was a white pullover with a couple stripes on each sleeve, yup, white. I also had one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts and one pair of shoes. I did have a couple changes of underwear and socks, but I don't think we need to discuss that (at least not right now).
We left the house about 8:30am and it was another beautiful morning. Again, there were a lot of people walking, please don't make me go into that again. The church was maybe about 15 minutes away. All along the sides of the road there were people trying to sell their wares. There was too much variety for me to remember it all, but some types of things seen:
- Ladies who would lay out a blanket and had their fruit stacked in little pyramids.
- People with cheap looking electronic stuff.
- Mini Coke Depots, where you could get a coke and sit at one of their two tables, or you could buy cases for your business. We saw some cases on the back of bikes.
- Sheets
- Tarps, some small, some very large; for big trucks.
- Newly made Furniture
- Meat, freshly sliced from whatever was hanging there attracting flies.
- Shoes, not only in pairs, but also sold separately, because they didn't have the match.
- Clothes, mostly second hand from the states.
- Corn, "cooked" on the cob, but looked about ready to pop to me.
- Lumber, of sorts. These were just a bunch of skinny trees without branches. I saw a rather large 3 story building under construction with scaffolding (made from these timbers) all the way around.
- Live chickens
- Some of these little shanties were labeled "Chemist". I'm not exactly sure what they sold or what services they offered. So I thought maybe I would go check one out.
-Yeah, uh, jambo, uh, could you mix me up a petrie dish of saline solution, a shaker of NaCl and maybe a beaker of bacteria infested H2O??
- Pretty much whatever you may want, you just need to know where to find it.
The main roads in town weren't that bad, as far as pavement goes. The problem was that you had to share it with Mutatus, livestock, bota-botas (bikes, pronounced like boata boata), people and crazy drivers. Mutatus are basically taxicabs; you have your little four-door type (mainly Peugeots 404s) and your larger van type. As is probably the case in a lot of third world countries, traffic laws, if they exist, are not exactly followed in day-to-day activity. The Mutatus drive pretty crazy, they weave all over and stop whenever and wherever they want to, so they can cram as many people in as possible.
Imagine, if you will, a whole city of teenage girls learning to drive a stick shift, while talking to each other on the phone, with wet nails.
Uh, somehow, I think I might pay for that last comment. Anyway, once you have that mental image, throw in a mixed bag of random cows, goats and pigs wandering aimlessly (I guess, to be fair, these would represent the teen boys). To add to the confusion, the bota botas are in and out of traffic, people walking across the streets, people pulling water carts, a few delivery trucks and private vehicles. There you have it, always an adventure. We ran into somewhat of a traffic jam.
Someone had spilled a whole load of baggies full of popcorn (on the way to market). Traffic slowed a bit while he risked life and limb scampering around the street trying to salvage every last baggie.
Flashback to when I dropped the radio in the road in Vegas, but that's an entirely different story.
Eventually, we pulled off the main road and down into a rutted dirt road. No vehicle traffic here, just people walking. A couple blocks down this pseudo road lined with trash is the entrance to the church. The guard opened the gate and we drove into the compound.
There was no rush of suitcases, as the volume was slowing and we were not seeing ours, so I decided to hit the local restroom. Well, here is where I have already noticed a difference in cultures. In London, it's not the "Men's Room", the "Powder Room" or the "Restroom". It's not even the "Lavatory"...it's the "Toilet" and that's the way it is labeled.
Here in Nairobi, it is also different. First of all, there was a label: "WC" with a lady symbol (dress) and arrow one direction, and the men symbol and arrow the other direction. WC, hmmm, that could stand for any number of things. Waste Chute, Water Contamination or even Wapi Choo (Swahili for "Where is the Toilet"). Regardless of what it meant, I figured I would follow the arrow by the man symbol and see if it was indeed a "toilet". Well, I found it, the door was propped wide open, and it smelled like... well it smell's like a WC. The urinal was of the trough variety. Made out of stainless steel (however, this one was stained), and a bunch of smelly, moth-ball-type "sanitizers" thrown in for good measure. There was a small step directly in front of it.
Now, I'm not entirely sure, but this was either a small step intended to be stood on while using the WC or maybe it was just their way of creating a barrier to keep the ...liquids... off the main floor. Either way, because the door was open and standing on the floor would leave me in full view of anyone walking by, I opted for the step theory. When using any of these flat against the wall, multi-user contraptions, you start to appreciate the privacy of the single position urinal along with the, umm, shall we say "splatter reducing qualities" of its curvature. My main objective was to get out of there before some careless Kenyan came in, in which case I may have needed a new pair of shoes even before getting out of the airport. I think we have carried this line of thought a little too far, so I will stop for now, but I reserve the right to bring it up again at a later time.
As another hour ticked by and the carousels, and the airport, were thinning out, we started to form the conclusion that something was amiss. Out of the 16 checked bags, we had only gotten one of them, not very good odds. Well, our Nairobi travel agent met us at the airport and was able to facilitate and translate when necessary. We each had to fill out a form for the missing luggage. Including having to basically look through luggage mug shots to identify what type of luggage it was.
So, let me get this straight, if I put multiple labels on the outside of my bag, a label on the inside of my bag, and you put destination tags all over it, you cannot get it to Kenya. But, if I tell you that I had a black suitcase similar to mug shot 22A along with the color of my underwear, you think you can find it anywhere in the world???
Waiting in line and filling out paperwork for everybody took approximately an hour and a half (yeah, that long). Then, about 12:30 or so in the morning, after about 30 hours of travel, we finally got out of the airport for our first real taste of the Kenya climate. It was very pleasant, not nearly as muggy as I had imagined.
We piled into a couple of taxi type vans and, after a stop at a convenience store for a snack, got to the guesthouse. Although we were only there for five or six hours it was nice to get cleaned up and get a nap. I also seized this opportunity to test my whole "toilet-draining" experiment. For those of you who have not followed my scientific dossiers: I've always heard that below the equator, the toilet water would swirl down the drain in the opposite direction when compared to the toilets in the US, or anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere (excluding the poles and certain other areas in which water would just freeze and not swirl at all).
So as not to create any undo assumptions or break through any comfort levels, I waited until the other guys were out of the room before I grabbed my video camera and headed to the bathroom. As soon as I opened the lid, I sensed what may be a problem, no, it didn't need to be flushed. The problem being that the bottom of the toilet bowl was a large opening where the water sat. When flushed, the water just filled up the hole and kinda garbled there. The water level would stay about the same and the old water would just kinda go out the back opening, which was as wide as the entire flat part (not really draining down at all). So, basically, there was no swirling at all, this was not suitable for the experiment, so I had to settle with filling up a sink with water, and then pulling the plug.
For those interested in my theory on this alleged phenomenon, please read on. For those of you, who are not interested in my theory, skip this paragraph. Actually "don't care" folks can just skip to the bottom, because if this doesn't interest you, I'm sure none of my little observations, experiences and occasional wise cracks will interest you either. Thanks for stopping by, I trust you can find your own way out!
Back to my conclusions: None of these have been scientifically proven right or wrong, so please read responsibly.
1) Toilets in the US swirl either way, depending on which way the water is introduced into the bowl and, to a smaller extent, internal currents from multiple causes, including, but not limited to, contents.
2) A sink full of water in the US will swirl either way depending on many influences, such as shape of sink, size and shape of drain, momentum caused by internal or external forces, etc.
3) The same is true for toilets and sinks anywhere in the world.
Summary: Hogwash! Although it sounds cool, and somewhat logical, that the earths spin will cause water to drain in different directions, drains are way too small to actually be effected by the Earth spinning.
So there you have it, I traveled half way around the world and failed to prove anything. However, FYI, on a larger scale, things such as hurricanes, do rotate counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
End of experiment.
Where was I? Oh yeah, headed to Kisumu (without luggage). We headed out from the guesthouse to the airport, and as soon as we got past the gate and out to the main road, I noticed people walking. Not just a few people walking, like a LOT of people walking. Like thousands and thousands of people walking. It was like New York City without the sidewalks, buildings or yellow cabs. It was like the Boston Marathon but slower and without the colorful outfits, or the skinny little Kenyan guy in the lead... uh, well, maybe he was there, but you know what I mean. It was like rush hour without the cars or public transportation. Speaking of rush hour, with walking being slower, they probably have a rush-3hour or so.
Possible morning traffic report:
"All roads look great and there are no vehicle crashes to report. However, there is congestion BESIDE Main Street all the way into and beyond the center of town. We are just receiving reports of an injury accident BESIDE 3rd street. It seems a group of teens walking North on their way to school suddenly had a change of heart, spun around and headed south. Taking some northbound women by surprise. One of the women, returning from the market, dropped the load of bananas from atop her head. This set off a chain reaction in which up to 12 pedestrians, slipping on the peels, fell and sustained various injuries. Be advised to take an alternate route, but if you cross the street, be sure to look right, left, right.... (They drive on the left side of the road).
This traffic report brought to you by Sole Mates. At Sole Mates, we can install brand new sole covers so you can get more mileage from your shoes. Walk with confidence. Stop by your local Sole Mates today... "
Gosh where was I, oh yeah, trying to describe how many people were walking. Let me put it this way, if I had two bucks for every person that was walking, I'd barely have enough to put $1 into each hand of each person walking. Anyway, bottom line: there were a lot of people walking. I'm kind of assuming here, but I think the fast food restaurants might have walk-thru windows instead of drive-thrus.
Now, if you will let me continue....
In keeping with our airline tickets/baggage problems, once we got to the airport, we had trouble checking in because we had no hard copy tickets. After a minor delay at the ticket counter, and having some tweezers confiscated at security, we got through and went to sit in the waiting room. While sitting there, I got to thinking. I wanted
to be as safe as the next guy, but tweezers? Come on, what's the hijacker going to do with those?
"Well you can tell the tower that unless they release Mohammad by noon, I will begin plucking your eyebrows. Then I will continue to pluck the eyebrows of one passenger every 10 minutes after that."
Across the way, I noticed the restroom (I knew it was the restroom because the door was wide open). As I walked in, I got a dejavu experience, and was instantly reminded of the house of an elderly woman for whom I did yard work for years while in college. She was a very nice lady, but lived alone (with her 6 cats). Apparently she suffered from mottephobia (The fear of moths), because most of her house smelled like moth balls (and the rest of the house smelled like hair balls). After shaking that thought out of my head and checking all three stalls for toilet paper, and finding none, I decided to just use the trough for now. Well, at least I didn't see any moths in there....
We walked out to the plane and had another minor delay as each of our carry-ons had to be checked in with the dude outside the plane, because they would not fit in the overhead bin. He felt the need to hand write each of us baggage claim tickets even though we would just grab our bags as we got off the plane in Kisumu. This was Kenya Airways, it was a smaller plane, one seat in each row on the left and two on the right.
It was a shorter flight (about an hour and a half), then we finally reached our final destination, Kisumu, Kenya. As I walked off the plane and grabbed my "nearly carried-on", I noticed that we were the only plane at the airport. We had to walk from the tarmac through the chain link gate and to the parking lot. It was quick and easy, due to lack of luggage.
Once at the house, we had a little time to get settled which, again, didn't take much time without luggage. Then we met the team from Kisumu Baptist Church (KBC) for lunch. Each team member from Kisumu was paired up with a team member from Broadway. The Kisumu team was one short, so one was paired up with two of us from Broadway. I didn't want to miss out on getting acquainted with a Kenyan, but this worked out good, because I would be frequently wandering around taking pictures anyway.
They all seemed welcoming and nice to talk to. We had BBQ chicken and, although I've never been a fan of snapping veins off chicken bones, I couldn't help but notice how they would totally clean all the meat (and anything else) off the bone. We had time to talk to each other a bit and learn a little about each other, and then they left on foot and bike (no cars among them).
Sunday, August 8th, was a long day. I woke up at about 6am local time, so seemed to be over the time difference. This was our basic schedule for the day:
9:30 - 10:45 Sunday School
11:00 - 12:30 Church Service
1:00 - 2:30 Lunch
3:00 - 6:00 VBS
6:30 - 8:00 Dinner Out
Well, no major decision had to be made on what to wear; I only had two shirts. One was my, heavy rugby type I mentioned earlier and the other was a white pullover with a couple stripes on each sleeve, yup, white. I also had one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts and one pair of shoes. I did have a couple changes of underwear and socks, but I don't think we need to discuss that (at least not right now).
We left the house about 8:30am and it was another beautiful morning. Again, there were a lot of people walking, please don't make me go into that again. The church was maybe about 15 minutes away. All along the sides of the road there were people trying to sell their wares. There was too much variety for me to remember it all, but some types of things seen:
- Ladies who would lay out a blanket and had their fruit stacked in little pyramids.
- People with cheap looking electronic stuff.
- Mini Coke Depots, where you could get a coke and sit at one of their two tables, or you could buy cases for your business. We saw some cases on the back of bikes.
- Sheets
- Tarps, some small, some very large; for big trucks.
- Newly made Furniture
- Meat, freshly sliced from whatever was hanging there attracting flies.
- Shoes, not only in pairs, but also sold separately, because they didn't have the match.
- Clothes, mostly second hand from the states.
- Corn, "cooked" on the cob, but looked about ready to pop to me.
- Lumber, of sorts. These were just a bunch of skinny trees without branches. I saw a rather large 3 story building under construction with scaffolding (made from these timbers) all the way around.
- Live chickens
- Some of these little shanties were labeled "Chemist". I'm not exactly sure what they sold or what services they offered. So I thought maybe I would go check one out.
-Yeah, uh, jambo, uh, could you mix me up a petrie dish of saline solution, a shaker of NaCl and maybe a beaker of bacteria infested H2O??
- Pretty much whatever you may want, you just need to know where to find it.
The main roads in town weren't that bad, as far as pavement goes. The problem was that you had to share it with Mutatus, livestock, bota-botas (bikes, pronounced like boata boata), people and crazy drivers. Mutatus are basically taxicabs; you have your little four-door type (mainly Peugeots 404s) and your larger van type. As is probably the case in a lot of third world countries, traffic laws, if they exist, are not exactly followed in day-to-day activity. The Mutatus drive pretty crazy, they weave all over and stop whenever and wherever they want to, so they can cram as many people in as possible.
Imagine, if you will, a whole city of teenage girls learning to drive a stick shift, while talking to each other on the phone, with wet nails.
Uh, somehow, I think I might pay for that last comment. Anyway, once you have that mental image, throw in a mixed bag of random cows, goats and pigs wandering aimlessly (I guess, to be fair, these would represent the teen boys). To add to the confusion, the bota botas are in and out of traffic, people walking across the streets, people pulling water carts, a few delivery trucks and private vehicles. There you have it, always an adventure. We ran into somewhat of a traffic jam.
Someone had spilled a whole load of baggies full of popcorn (on the way to market). Traffic slowed a bit while he risked life and limb scampering around the street trying to salvage every last baggie.
Flashback to when I dropped the radio in the road in Vegas, but that's an entirely different story.
Eventually, we pulled off the main road and down into a rutted dirt road. No vehicle traffic here, just people walking. A couple blocks down this pseudo road lined with trash is the entrance to the church. The guard opened the gate and we drove into the compound.
Africa Part 2 of 10
The Good The Bad and The Funny,
Reflections of Kenya
Preface:
I know, I know. Only books should have a preface, but since this rambles on quite a bit, I think it qualifies. Besides, I thought it would be best to be upfront with all of my disclaimers and warnings, so here they are.
Although other members of the team may remember certain events differently, this is how I recall them. As I proceeded in the writing of this, it just kept growing. I experienced so much during the two week trip that I could not include everything. I left out so many details, but I have a feeling it is already too long and many people will either quit reading it or just end up skimming it.
I will undoubtedly get some facts wrong and even though I possess a vast knowledge of the Swahili language, I'm sure I will mispronounce (can you do that in text?) and/or misspell some words.
Another thing I should mention; sometimes text comes across differently than it would if I were saying it with the intended tone and body language. I apologize for anything that may come across wrong to somebody; I really don't mean any part of this to be offensive. I once heard that "Sarcasm is the greatest form of flattery". Oh, wait a minute, I guess I just made that up, but pretend it's an old saying because you might run across it on occasion. I tried to make any sarcasm or pun obvious to even the casual reader, so if you miss anything, consider yourself when looking for someone to blame.
I have opted not to use any names as most people don't want to have anything to do with me anyway. Besides, this is my story, not yours, so whatever I say goes.
That said; let's get on with it before I lose any more of you!
Thursday, August 5th 2004
The day had finally come for us to depart for Kenya. We all met at the Boise airport around 5am. We had been instructed to check our bags all the way through to Kisumu in order to avoid weight restrictions on "in country" Kenyan flights. So, after quite a bit of finagling at the check in desk, all the luggage got checked to Kisumu and we received paper copies of our tickets and itineraries (they had been e-tickets up to this point). Knowing the paperwork was done and the flight was scheduled to leave on time (like that should ever be a problem for a plane that has been sitting there overnight), I was somewhat relieved.
One of the worst things about airports today, is that your family and friends can no longer hang out with you at the gate until you board. So, we all said our goodbyes and had a prayer for safe travel and a good trip, then walked to the security gate. I had been designated the team photographer and therefore took a digital still camera, a video camera and even the laptop to store photos so I wouldn't have to worry about having enough memory cards, and in addition I had a carryon. When I got to the x-ray conveyor, I was instructed to take the camera bags off my belt and send them through the machine. Ok not a problem. Once I took them off, I was instructed to take them out of their carrying cases and also take the laptop out of its carrying case. Sheesh, anything else? Uh yeah, I had to remove my shoes. Eventually I made it through and after getting dressed again, continued on to the gate.
After the first couple of flights, we ended up in Washington (as was the plan). We had some problems getting British Air to find us in the computer (this was not in the plan). It was only a minor annoyance, and although most people were already on board or boarding, we knew we would get on.
At about 11:15am Eastern time we safely boarded the plane from Washington to London. This is not that big of a surprise, I suppose, as boarding a plane is usually not all that dangerous in the first place. As luck would have it, I was sitting between a couple of people I didn't know, an American lady on the left and a guy to my right who was wearing a suit and he looked Italian.
I don't know a lot of rich folk, so you all should be able to relate to my next thought: Next time, let's board from the back of the plane so we don't have to walk through all the cushy seats on the way to our please-sit-sideways-because-your-shoulders-are-too-wide seats. This was the largest plane I had ever been on, but I think that most planes have the same basic layout. Here is my play-by-play take on boarding:
I entered the plane and the stewardess, who was young, cute and smiling radiantly atop her high heels, checked my ticket stub. As she zeroed in on my seat number/letter, her smile went from a "1st class smile" to a "coach smile" and she told me to cross over and go way, way, way, back. So feeling like somewhat of a lowlife, I crossed over past the spiral staircase that wound up to the upper first class seats (well, maybe it wasn't spiral but it may as well have been). As I passed, I got a small glimpse of leather lazy-boy recliners, along with the smell of freshly roasted nuts and buttered popcorn. There seemed to be a bit of a party atmosphere up there and I believe I saw the unmistakable swirling lights from a disco ball. I walked through 2nd class (reclining seats with footstools and privacy curtains between seats). The stewardess there was already busy giving the passengers damp, warm towels to freshen up and was bringing them drinks. I stumbled through the 3rd class seats, not bad, roomy and comfortable. I kept going and eventually passed from the 3rd class section to the No class section. I was winded by the time I got to my seat, which was right in the middle of a couple of fellow lowlife strangers, struggling to find enough room to stash their carry-ons. I saw no stewardess in sight; I was parched from my walking tour of the Jumbo Jet.
Once everyone was seated, our elderly stewardess wearing "sensible" shoes shut the aisle curtain between NO class and 3rd class, just to remind us that we are the cheapies. Later she brought by drinks, I asked for a coke and got a shot-can of coke. It's kinda like a shot-glass, except that it's made of aluminum and has a pop top. Thanks a lot, could I get another case of these please?
Most airline seats, as I recall in my limited flying, have their own designated space under the seat in front of them so that you can "make sure your carry-ons are securely stowed in the overhead compartments or completely under the seat in front of you". Well, in this particular plane, there was no divider under the seat in front of me to separate my space from that of the dude beside me. I had my fairly large carryon shoved under the seat (in case I needed to use my pillow, sanitizer or change clothes). That didn't leave much room for my feet, but there was still enough for me to contain myself in my own "area".
Well, Luigi (who had taken his shoes off, as had I) didn't seem to be able to control his feet, and if his foot "accidentally" touched mine one more time, I was ready to slap him upside the head and make him and his imitation Armani suit, sit in the lavatory the rest of the flight.
Eventually, after making sure no one else on the plane wanted anything more, we got a token airline meal. Luigi dropped some cellophane wrap and had to get it, and then he dropped his foil between the tray and the seat. Then he knocked his water bottle onto the floor. What a slob. As if that wasn't bad enough, he spilled food on his crotch. At least I hope that's what happened, all I saw was him picking up something off his pants and eating it. He had kinda taken over the armrest so I sat there with my elbows stuck to my sides, watching out for whatever he was going to knock over next. Luckily, he went to sleep soon after the "meal", so that I could rest easy, but no way was I gonna close my eyes!
Now maybe I don't get out much, but on that plane, I discovered one of the greatest inventions this side of urethane wheels (for you skateboarders out there). In the seat back in front of me there was a small monitor. There were controls on the armrest; an idea that could definitely use some more thought. Anyway, there were 15 or so channels, some with movies, others with misc. recorded TV shows. However, the invention I am referring to is the channel that displays flight information. It has all kinds of facts that the average person would never know, such as:
Local time at departure point, local time at destination point, ground speed, outside temp, time left to destination, and distance left to destination. But the single coolest feature is the GPS tracking. There is a map showing the entire flight route and the current position and direction of the plane. It cycles through a few magnified screens so that you can tell exactly what you are flying over. This might have been a little more useful if I had Luigi's window seat instead of mine, but none the same, it was a very cool feature. I got to thinking that next time I buy a car (somewhere near 2012), I could get one of these monitors for each of the kids. No more "Are we there yet"?, "How much farther"?, "What city is this"? Of course, on the downside, I may start hearing stuff like: "Dad, why did you pass our exit"? or "Dad, don't you think it might be a better idea if we take 215 down to 62 then go east on 44"?. At which point I would say "yeah, yeah, can't you just pick on your sister or something"?
Well, at one point we were just below Greenland with 2hours and 26 minutes to go to London (1301 miles). We were traveling 644 MPH at
37000feet with a tailwind of 198MPH and it was minus 47 degrees outside. Sheesh, who'd a thunk it, a tailwind of 198MPH. With a tailwind like that, even an AMC Pacer could almost hit 150, almost.
We made it to London, 3 flights down, 2 to go. We were a little late boarding because the plane was "left in the sun too long" and was too hot inside. Now, is this something that is new to them? If the plane is on the tarmac, and the sun is shining, uh, don't you think it might get a little hot? Are these the same people who we keep reading about that leave pets in the car during hot summer days?
"OK Fifi, I'll be back after I get my hair done. I will bring you back some water because they say it is supposed to be 110 degrees today... Oooops, I almost left the window open, somebody could have stolen the change from my ashtray. There, with the window up, you will be safer."
On the upside, poor Fifi has the rest of his life to figure out how to get the door open.
Whoa, off on a tangent again, back to the airplane....
When we did board, I saw what they meant. I was starting to have second thoughts about wearing my thick, long sleeved rugby shirt. By the time I got through the upper classes, I was withering. I did finally get a window seat and so I melted into it and collapsed against the sidewall.
At this point of the trip, I was getting a bit tired. Couple that with the suffocating heat and lack of oxygen, and I couldn't help drifting off into various states of consciousness. The next thing I knew, I woke up mumbling, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home". I noticed we had hit cruising altitude, it was minus 52 degrees out and the AC was on. Once I awoke from my slumber, I could not go back to sleep. This was OK though, I had a window seat. I had a window, it was all mine! I could look out if I wanted to, I could lean on it if I wanted to, I could pull the shade if I wanted to, heck, I could even breathe on it and draw little happy faces anytime I wanted to. So as I was enjoying my newfound "window-freedom", through the clouds I saw another plane going basically the opposite direction. This was fine, but it seemed to be about 200 yards away at exactly the same altitude we were. I could be wrong, but isn't the sky pretty large? I was thinking that maybe we could keep more distance between us, say 2 miles. We were so close that I could see the "Next Oil Change" sticker on his windshield. Also, I couldn't be sure, but as I watched it disappear into the clouds behind us, I could have sworn that some guy in 1st class was playing with the electric windows. I was beginning to think that the window seat may not be advantageous after all, but enough about the near miss.
I loved the GPS map. We passed directly over the Alps, near Switzerland and Austria. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the hills were alive. It was very interesting to see all the steep mountains and the roads that ran along between them. Every so often, where the valley between the mountaintops would allow, there was a small town. Well, at least it looked small from the plane; I imagine it was actually life sized, just not many people or buildings. Most of the mountains were green, however, some were rocky and some were snow covered. Next up was Sicily, a place that I have heard about, but had never really known where it was or what it was like. Well, there it was. It is a fairly large island surrounded by beautiful beaches (at least they were beautiful from 7miles up). It looked like a nice vacation destination; I didn't notice many large-scale hotels and such. Very cool, I guess the window seat is paying off after all.
Next on the tour was the northern part of Africa, which is pretty much the Sahara Desert. This was basically, for lack of a better word:
SAND. Yup, sand as far as I could see in all directions. This went on for hours (at 500+MPH), that's a lot of sand. I'm talking a LOT of sand. If I had penny for every square mile of sand, I would be up front playing with the windows in my leather recliner.
It looked mostly flattish from my viewpoint, with some "drifts", which were probably sizable dunes. It was clear and sunny and it looked very hot. Somebody was very serious when drawing a line in this sand, it went straight off into the horizon, and I assume it was a road of some sort. Did I mention the sand? There was quite a bit of it.
Normally, I would now interject some witty (and very funny, by the way) SAND humor.
Such as:
So then the SANDman walked into the SANDbank and, after making everybody go to sleep, put all the SANDdollars in a SANDbag so he could buy himself a SANDwich. Headlines in the SANDpaper read "SANDman behind SANDbars".
But since I don't have the time or space, I'll spare you from any jokeS AND puns, or not.
Reflections of Kenya
Preface:
I know, I know. Only books should have a preface, but since this rambles on quite a bit, I think it qualifies. Besides, I thought it would be best to be upfront with all of my disclaimers and warnings, so here they are.
Although other members of the team may remember certain events differently, this is how I recall them. As I proceeded in the writing of this, it just kept growing. I experienced so much during the two week trip that I could not include everything. I left out so many details, but I have a feeling it is already too long and many people will either quit reading it or just end up skimming it.
I will undoubtedly get some facts wrong and even though I possess a vast knowledge of the Swahili language, I'm sure I will mispronounce (can you do that in text?) and/or misspell some words.
Another thing I should mention; sometimes text comes across differently than it would if I were saying it with the intended tone and body language. I apologize for anything that may come across wrong to somebody; I really don't mean any part of this to be offensive. I once heard that "Sarcasm is the greatest form of flattery". Oh, wait a minute, I guess I just made that up, but pretend it's an old saying because you might run across it on occasion. I tried to make any sarcasm or pun obvious to even the casual reader, so if you miss anything, consider yourself when looking for someone to blame.
I have opted not to use any names as most people don't want to have anything to do with me anyway. Besides, this is my story, not yours, so whatever I say goes.
That said; let's get on with it before I lose any more of you!
Thursday, August 5th 2004
The day had finally come for us to depart for Kenya. We all met at the Boise airport around 5am. We had been instructed to check our bags all the way through to Kisumu in order to avoid weight restrictions on "in country" Kenyan flights. So, after quite a bit of finagling at the check in desk, all the luggage got checked to Kisumu and we received paper copies of our tickets and itineraries (they had been e-tickets up to this point). Knowing the paperwork was done and the flight was scheduled to leave on time (like that should ever be a problem for a plane that has been sitting there overnight), I was somewhat relieved.
One of the worst things about airports today, is that your family and friends can no longer hang out with you at the gate until you board. So, we all said our goodbyes and had a prayer for safe travel and a good trip, then walked to the security gate. I had been designated the team photographer and therefore took a digital still camera, a video camera and even the laptop to store photos so I wouldn't have to worry about having enough memory cards, and in addition I had a carryon. When I got to the x-ray conveyor, I was instructed to take the camera bags off my belt and send them through the machine. Ok not a problem. Once I took them off, I was instructed to take them out of their carrying cases and also take the laptop out of its carrying case. Sheesh, anything else? Uh yeah, I had to remove my shoes. Eventually I made it through and after getting dressed again, continued on to the gate.
After the first couple of flights, we ended up in Washington (as was the plan). We had some problems getting British Air to find us in the computer (this was not in the plan). It was only a minor annoyance, and although most people were already on board or boarding, we knew we would get on.
At about 11:15am Eastern time we safely boarded the plane from Washington to London. This is not that big of a surprise, I suppose, as boarding a plane is usually not all that dangerous in the first place. As luck would have it, I was sitting between a couple of people I didn't know, an American lady on the left and a guy to my right who was wearing a suit and he looked Italian.
I don't know a lot of rich folk, so you all should be able to relate to my next thought: Next time, let's board from the back of the plane so we don't have to walk through all the cushy seats on the way to our please-sit-sideways-because-your-shoulders-are-too-wide seats. This was the largest plane I had ever been on, but I think that most planes have the same basic layout. Here is my play-by-play take on boarding:
I entered the plane and the stewardess, who was young, cute and smiling radiantly atop her high heels, checked my ticket stub. As she zeroed in on my seat number/letter, her smile went from a "1st class smile" to a "coach smile" and she told me to cross over and go way, way, way, back. So feeling like somewhat of a lowlife, I crossed over past the spiral staircase that wound up to the upper first class seats (well, maybe it wasn't spiral but it may as well have been). As I passed, I got a small glimpse of leather lazy-boy recliners, along with the smell of freshly roasted nuts and buttered popcorn. There seemed to be a bit of a party atmosphere up there and I believe I saw the unmistakable swirling lights from a disco ball. I walked through 2nd class (reclining seats with footstools and privacy curtains between seats). The stewardess there was already busy giving the passengers damp, warm towels to freshen up and was bringing them drinks. I stumbled through the 3rd class seats, not bad, roomy and comfortable. I kept going and eventually passed from the 3rd class section to the No class section. I was winded by the time I got to my seat, which was right in the middle of a couple of fellow lowlife strangers, struggling to find enough room to stash their carry-ons. I saw no stewardess in sight; I was parched from my walking tour of the Jumbo Jet.
Once everyone was seated, our elderly stewardess wearing "sensible" shoes shut the aisle curtain between NO class and 3rd class, just to remind us that we are the cheapies. Later she brought by drinks, I asked for a coke and got a shot-can of coke. It's kinda like a shot-glass, except that it's made of aluminum and has a pop top. Thanks a lot, could I get another case of these please?
Most airline seats, as I recall in my limited flying, have their own designated space under the seat in front of them so that you can "make sure your carry-ons are securely stowed in the overhead compartments or completely under the seat in front of you". Well, in this particular plane, there was no divider under the seat in front of me to separate my space from that of the dude beside me. I had my fairly large carryon shoved under the seat (in case I needed to use my pillow, sanitizer or change clothes). That didn't leave much room for my feet, but there was still enough for me to contain myself in my own "area".
Well, Luigi (who had taken his shoes off, as had I) didn't seem to be able to control his feet, and if his foot "accidentally" touched mine one more time, I was ready to slap him upside the head and make him and his imitation Armani suit, sit in the lavatory the rest of the flight.
Eventually, after making sure no one else on the plane wanted anything more, we got a token airline meal. Luigi dropped some cellophane wrap and had to get it, and then he dropped his foil between the tray and the seat. Then he knocked his water bottle onto the floor. What a slob. As if that wasn't bad enough, he spilled food on his crotch. At least I hope that's what happened, all I saw was him picking up something off his pants and eating it. He had kinda taken over the armrest so I sat there with my elbows stuck to my sides, watching out for whatever he was going to knock over next. Luckily, he went to sleep soon after the "meal", so that I could rest easy, but no way was I gonna close my eyes!
Now maybe I don't get out much, but on that plane, I discovered one of the greatest inventions this side of urethane wheels (for you skateboarders out there). In the seat back in front of me there was a small monitor. There were controls on the armrest; an idea that could definitely use some more thought. Anyway, there were 15 or so channels, some with movies, others with misc. recorded TV shows. However, the invention I am referring to is the channel that displays flight information. It has all kinds of facts that the average person would never know, such as:
Local time at departure point, local time at destination point, ground speed, outside temp, time left to destination, and distance left to destination. But the single coolest feature is the GPS tracking. There is a map showing the entire flight route and the current position and direction of the plane. It cycles through a few magnified screens so that you can tell exactly what you are flying over. This might have been a little more useful if I had Luigi's window seat instead of mine, but none the same, it was a very cool feature. I got to thinking that next time I buy a car (somewhere near 2012), I could get one of these monitors for each of the kids. No more "Are we there yet"?, "How much farther"?, "What city is this"? Of course, on the downside, I may start hearing stuff like: "Dad, why did you pass our exit"? or "Dad, don't you think it might be a better idea if we take 215 down to 62 then go east on 44"?. At which point I would say "yeah, yeah, can't you just pick on your sister or something"?
Well, at one point we were just below Greenland with 2hours and 26 minutes to go to London (1301 miles). We were traveling 644 MPH at
37000feet with a tailwind of 198MPH and it was minus 47 degrees outside. Sheesh, who'd a thunk it, a tailwind of 198MPH. With a tailwind like that, even an AMC Pacer could almost hit 150, almost.
We made it to London, 3 flights down, 2 to go. We were a little late boarding because the plane was "left in the sun too long" and was too hot inside. Now, is this something that is new to them? If the plane is on the tarmac, and the sun is shining, uh, don't you think it might get a little hot? Are these the same people who we keep reading about that leave pets in the car during hot summer days?
"OK Fifi, I'll be back after I get my hair done. I will bring you back some water because they say it is supposed to be 110 degrees today... Oooops, I almost left the window open, somebody could have stolen the change from my ashtray. There, with the window up, you will be safer."
On the upside, poor Fifi has the rest of his life to figure out how to get the door open.
Whoa, off on a tangent again, back to the airplane....
When we did board, I saw what they meant. I was starting to have second thoughts about wearing my thick, long sleeved rugby shirt. By the time I got through the upper classes, I was withering. I did finally get a window seat and so I melted into it and collapsed against the sidewall.
At this point of the trip, I was getting a bit tired. Couple that with the suffocating heat and lack of oxygen, and I couldn't help drifting off into various states of consciousness. The next thing I knew, I woke up mumbling, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home". I noticed we had hit cruising altitude, it was minus 52 degrees out and the AC was on. Once I awoke from my slumber, I could not go back to sleep. This was OK though, I had a window seat. I had a window, it was all mine! I could look out if I wanted to, I could lean on it if I wanted to, I could pull the shade if I wanted to, heck, I could even breathe on it and draw little happy faces anytime I wanted to. So as I was enjoying my newfound "window-freedom", through the clouds I saw another plane going basically the opposite direction. This was fine, but it seemed to be about 200 yards away at exactly the same altitude we were. I could be wrong, but isn't the sky pretty large? I was thinking that maybe we could keep more distance between us, say 2 miles. We were so close that I could see the "Next Oil Change" sticker on his windshield. Also, I couldn't be sure, but as I watched it disappear into the clouds behind us, I could have sworn that some guy in 1st class was playing with the electric windows. I was beginning to think that the window seat may not be advantageous after all, but enough about the near miss.
I loved the GPS map. We passed directly over the Alps, near Switzerland and Austria. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the hills were alive. It was very interesting to see all the steep mountains and the roads that ran along between them. Every so often, where the valley between the mountaintops would allow, there was a small town. Well, at least it looked small from the plane; I imagine it was actually life sized, just not many people or buildings. Most of the mountains were green, however, some were rocky and some were snow covered. Next up was Sicily, a place that I have heard about, but had never really known where it was or what it was like. Well, there it was. It is a fairly large island surrounded by beautiful beaches (at least they were beautiful from 7miles up). It looked like a nice vacation destination; I didn't notice many large-scale hotels and such. Very cool, I guess the window seat is paying off after all.
Next on the tour was the northern part of Africa, which is pretty much the Sahara Desert. This was basically, for lack of a better word:
SAND. Yup, sand as far as I could see in all directions. This went on for hours (at 500+MPH), that's a lot of sand. I'm talking a LOT of sand. If I had penny for every square mile of sand, I would be up front playing with the windows in my leather recliner.
It looked mostly flattish from my viewpoint, with some "drifts", which were probably sizable dunes. It was clear and sunny and it looked very hot. Somebody was very serious when drawing a line in this sand, it went straight off into the horizon, and I assume it was a road of some sort. Did I mention the sand? There was quite a bit of it.
Normally, I would now interject some witty (and very funny, by the way) SAND humor.
Such as:
So then the SANDman walked into the SANDbank and, after making everybody go to sleep, put all the SANDdollars in a SANDbag so he could buy himself a SANDwich. Headlines in the SANDpaper read "SANDman behind SANDbars".
But since I don't have the time or space, I'll spare you from any jokeS AND puns, or not.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Africa Part 1 of 10
OK, as promised, I am going to post some backwash stuff so that anybody who has extra time can spend it here. I will start out with my 2004 Africa trip, It is very long so I am going to break it up into sections, enjoy...
So, today is July 14, 2004, just three weeks before I leave for Kenya, Africa.
The official language of Kenya is Swahili. Now, like most Americans, I have not had much use for anything Swahili, albeit, a fun word to pronounce. But, I now find myself inneed of at least basic communication skills. Currently, I only know the following:
Jambo -> Hello (Rhymes with Mambo, not with Rambo)
Tafidhali -> Please
Asante Sauna -> Thank You
Wapi Choo -> Where is the Toilet? (Rhymes with 'sloppy joe', hey....wait a minute, I hope that isn't any indication of the bathroom conditions.)
Ummmmmmm -> Ummmmmmmm (I have a feeling, I will use this one the most)
Sure, that covers the bare minimum, but I think there are some other phrases that may come in handy. Such as:
-> Excuse me, is that your water buffalo?
-> Eeeuw, did you have that pierced by choice?
-> Are you going to eat that or just let it crawl off your plate?
-> Coke, you know, soft drink..., Coca-Cola? Oh never mind, I guess I'll take the cow blood.
I will know just enough to know nothing. So, in the event that I board the wrong plane or the wrong bus full of livestock, I may have a problem getting back to Kenya from, say, South Africa. I would have to find someone who knew a bit more English than I know Swahili. The conversation would go something like this:
South African Dude: Jambo
Me: Jambo, Ummmm, Uh, I'm lll...I'm lll... OK, OK, I'm LOST. Speak English tafidhali?
Dude: I Speak little English.
Me: Sweet. Umm I'm lost, can you tell me how to get back?
Dude: Ya, you tell me where you want to go, I can help you.
Me: Kenya.
Dude: Ya, but you have to tell me where you want to go. Then I can tell you how to get there.
Me: Kenya.
Dude: Yes, I can, but not if you don't tell me where you want to go.
[So at this point, I would figure that anywhere close would do. Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Masai Mara. So I trya different angle:]
Me: Ummmm, Uganda, Mara.......
Dude: Well, yes, I am gone tommorra, so if you want help, ask today.
ETC, ETC....
On second thought, maybe I need to learn a few more Swahili words. Like maybe 'phone booth' or 'are you hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth?' or 'embassy'.
Another thing, here, we are used to a certain type of road kill, opossum, skunk, maybe an occasional raccoon or domestic animal.So, it is not too uncommon for us to see a dead animal on the side of the road, and see its skin a few feet away, with some sort of ooze between the two. But,... I wonder how long it takes a zebra, wildebeest or even a rhino to decompose on theside of the road. We are talking Jumbo road kill (Jumbo, not jambo).
So, I'm not exactly sure what our days will be like. I hear we will be helping out with a childrens vacation bible school. How do I control a bunch of kids in a class when I cannot talk to them? I am hoping to use the finger as a universal communication tool. No! Not that finger, the index finger! You know, point at them and give them kind of a tough squint along with a slight tilt of the head. Yeah, that should work.
Anyway, this should be a good time, and I hope to help as well as learn. Another thing I heard we should look forward to is painting a church. Well, who wouldn't look forward to that.What kind of paint do you use on dried mud anyway. Actually, in Kisumu, where we will be staying, they have some pretty normal buildings. Painting and helping in vacation bible school shouldbe enjoyable, maybe a bit awkward at times, but I can handle that.
Then we plan on venturing into the 'Bush' for a few days. From what I hear, there is not really a lot of bushes, in fact, there is not much of anything. But I guess I'd rather 'go to the bush' than 'go to the dead grass and weeds' or 'go to the barren wasteland'. This sounds to be a bit more unstructured, street and door-to-door evangelism type stuff. I hope to fade into the background (not too far though), and take pictures and eat granola bars or something. We will see how that part goes.
Again, I'm not exactly sure what it is that they eat out there. But, I have been told that it is impolite to refuse any food. Great. Is it polite to puke at the table? They could save the chunks and make soup. If I heave hard enough, from deep, deep down, they just may get some remnants of the tomatoes my mom made me eat as a kid, using the 'starving children in Africa' as an argument. Finally, they can have them! I also know that some tribes(Massai for example) drink cow blood. Ummmm, I don't think so. I'd rather have a V8....well, actually, that's kind of a toss up. I wonder if cow blood comes in different flavors. I can picture the scene now, it's about 5am in the Masai Mara (where the Masai live). A lone Masai warrior is up early and stumbles drowsily around the jumbo road kill to the blood shack... 'StarBloods'."Good morning, I'd like a grande, O-negative, double clot, witha shot of white cells, tafidhali."
Something is just not right about that. One of our differences I guess. Take a birdbath full of blood, for example, I'd callit a 'blood-bath', a Masai would call it a 'punch-bowl'. OK,enough about that, I'll just stick with the water. Wait, I can't drink the water.Ummmmm.
I am curious about a couple things. 1) Seeing how Kenya straddles the equator, I want to satisfy my scientific curiosity and see for myself if the toilet water swirls the opposite direction below that imaginary line. And to take it a step further, what happens if I flush a toilet directly over the equator. Of course, none of this will have any bearing in the Bush...no matter where I dig my toilet. 2) Will the Kenyans call me 'White Man' or 'American-African'
We hope to go to a game park for our final days in Kenya. For those of you (like myself), who find it hard to reference a game park and not be pun-ny: No, we don't expect to see theParker bros or anything from Hasbro, we're talkin' wild game!
This should be an experience like no other. Sounds like we will be there during the 'Great Wildebeest Migration'. The wildebeest are also called gnu, but you probably already 'gnu' that. This probably caused some grief in naming the whole spectacle. On one side of the tent, you had the liberal masai wanting to call it the 'Wildebeest Migration' and the other side of the tent, you had the conservatives pushing for 'Gnu Migration'. After some in-tents negotiations, both sides had upped the name appeal to 'The Great Wildebeest Migration' and 'The Gnu and Improved Migration', respectively. In the end, they all agreed on Wildebeest and drank blood together. Regardless of the name, millions of the mainplayers (wildebeest and zebra), along with misc predators along for the buffet of said animals and their young, take a yearly trek across the country and back, in search of greener pastures. It's a very treacherous journey, and many of them die. I would think that the smart ones would gno better by now. If they just stay put, the survivors will be back in afew months.
I am just starting to get my things together for the trip,and trying to figure out what I need before we leave. I started getting immunizations a few months ago. I got the Hepatitis A, I got the Hepatitis B, I got the typhoid and the yellow fever, I got the malaria, the rockin 'pneumonia and the boogy-woogy flu. So, the way I figure it, in the event of a major outbreak of anything, I will survive. Along with some cockroaches and possibly Keith Richards.
I have picked up my little travel size sunscreen (50spf), bug repellent (100% deet) and hand sanitizer (well, it's actually just sanitizer, I guess I will use it where ever it is customary to touch each other during a greeting).
Anyway, I just wanted to give everybody (or at least you people) a heads up and let you know I will be going soon. I am not really worried about where we are going, but am not looking forward to the travel back and forth. Each way will take just over 40 hours, with 5 flights each.I don't much like to fly, so with any luck, I will be seated somewhere behind the pastor so I can chug down some of those little airline drinks. Of course, on the last leg (Kenya Airways), they may serve their drinks in small viles. So, just pray that I get home safely and that Dionna can handle the kids (and the yardwork) while I'm gone.
So, today is July 14, 2004, just three weeks before I leave for Kenya, Africa.
The official language of Kenya is Swahili. Now, like most Americans, I have not had much use for anything Swahili, albeit, a fun word to pronounce. But, I now find myself inneed of at least basic communication skills. Currently, I only know the following:
Jambo -> Hello (Rhymes with Mambo, not with Rambo)
Tafidhali -> Please
Asante Sauna -> Thank You
Wapi Choo -> Where is the Toilet? (Rhymes with 'sloppy joe', hey....wait a minute, I hope that isn't any indication of the bathroom conditions.)
Ummmmmmm -> Ummmmmmmm (I have a feeling, I will use this one the most)
Sure, that covers the bare minimum, but I think there are some other phrases that may come in handy. Such as:
-> Excuse me, is that your water buffalo?
-> Eeeuw, did you have that pierced by choice?
-> Are you going to eat that or just let it crawl off your plate?
-> Coke, you know, soft drink..., Coca-Cola? Oh never mind, I guess I'll take the cow blood.
I will know just enough to know nothing. So, in the event that I board the wrong plane or the wrong bus full of livestock, I may have a problem getting back to Kenya from, say, South Africa. I would have to find someone who knew a bit more English than I know Swahili. The conversation would go something like this:
South African Dude: Jambo
Me: Jambo, Ummmm, Uh, I'm lll...I'm lll... OK, OK, I'm LOST. Speak English tafidhali?
Dude: I Speak little English.
Me: Sweet. Umm I'm lost, can you tell me how to get back?
Dude: Ya, you tell me where you want to go, I can help you.
Me: Kenya.
Dude: Ya, but you have to tell me where you want to go. Then I can tell you how to get there.
Me: Kenya.
Dude: Yes, I can, but not if you don't tell me where you want to go.
[So at this point, I would figure that anywhere close would do. Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Masai Mara. So I trya different angle:]
Me: Ummmm, Uganda, Mara.......
Dude: Well, yes, I am gone tommorra, so if you want help, ask today.
ETC, ETC....
On second thought, maybe I need to learn a few more Swahili words. Like maybe 'phone booth' or 'are you hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth?' or 'embassy'.
Another thing, here, we are used to a certain type of road kill, opossum, skunk, maybe an occasional raccoon or domestic animal.So, it is not too uncommon for us to see a dead animal on the side of the road, and see its skin a few feet away, with some sort of ooze between the two. But,... I wonder how long it takes a zebra, wildebeest or even a rhino to decompose on theside of the road. We are talking Jumbo road kill (Jumbo, not jambo).
So, I'm not exactly sure what our days will be like. I hear we will be helping out with a childrens vacation bible school. How do I control a bunch of kids in a class when I cannot talk to them? I am hoping to use the finger as a universal communication tool. No! Not that finger, the index finger! You know, point at them and give them kind of a tough squint along with a slight tilt of the head. Yeah, that should work.
Anyway, this should be a good time, and I hope to help as well as learn. Another thing I heard we should look forward to is painting a church. Well, who wouldn't look forward to that.What kind of paint do you use on dried mud anyway. Actually, in Kisumu, where we will be staying, they have some pretty normal buildings. Painting and helping in vacation bible school shouldbe enjoyable, maybe a bit awkward at times, but I can handle that.
Then we plan on venturing into the 'Bush' for a few days. From what I hear, there is not really a lot of bushes, in fact, there is not much of anything. But I guess I'd rather 'go to the bush' than 'go to the dead grass and weeds' or 'go to the barren wasteland'. This sounds to be a bit more unstructured, street and door-to-door evangelism type stuff. I hope to fade into the background (not too far though), and take pictures and eat granola bars or something. We will see how that part goes.
Again, I'm not exactly sure what it is that they eat out there. But, I have been told that it is impolite to refuse any food. Great. Is it polite to puke at the table? They could save the chunks and make soup. If I heave hard enough, from deep, deep down, they just may get some remnants of the tomatoes my mom made me eat as a kid, using the 'starving children in Africa' as an argument. Finally, they can have them! I also know that some tribes(Massai for example) drink cow blood. Ummmm, I don't think so. I'd rather have a V8....well, actually, that's kind of a toss up. I wonder if cow blood comes in different flavors. I can picture the scene now, it's about 5am in the Masai Mara (where the Masai live). A lone Masai warrior is up early and stumbles drowsily around the jumbo road kill to the blood shack... 'StarBloods'."Good morning, I'd like a grande, O-negative, double clot, witha shot of white cells, tafidhali."
Something is just not right about that. One of our differences I guess. Take a birdbath full of blood, for example, I'd callit a 'blood-bath', a Masai would call it a 'punch-bowl'. OK,enough about that, I'll just stick with the water. Wait, I can't drink the water.Ummmmm.
I am curious about a couple things. 1) Seeing how Kenya straddles the equator, I want to satisfy my scientific curiosity and see for myself if the toilet water swirls the opposite direction below that imaginary line. And to take it a step further, what happens if I flush a toilet directly over the equator. Of course, none of this will have any bearing in the Bush...no matter where I dig my toilet. 2) Will the Kenyans call me 'White Man' or 'American-African'
We hope to go to a game park for our final days in Kenya. For those of you (like myself), who find it hard to reference a game park and not be pun-ny: No, we don't expect to see theParker bros or anything from Hasbro, we're talkin' wild game!
This should be an experience like no other. Sounds like we will be there during the 'Great Wildebeest Migration'. The wildebeest are also called gnu, but you probably already 'gnu' that. This probably caused some grief in naming the whole spectacle. On one side of the tent, you had the liberal masai wanting to call it the 'Wildebeest Migration' and the other side of the tent, you had the conservatives pushing for 'Gnu Migration'. After some in-tents negotiations, both sides had upped the name appeal to 'The Great Wildebeest Migration' and 'The Gnu and Improved Migration', respectively. In the end, they all agreed on Wildebeest and drank blood together. Regardless of the name, millions of the mainplayers (wildebeest and zebra), along with misc predators along for the buffet of said animals and their young, take a yearly trek across the country and back, in search of greener pastures. It's a very treacherous journey, and many of them die. I would think that the smart ones would gno better by now. If they just stay put, the survivors will be back in afew months.
I am just starting to get my things together for the trip,and trying to figure out what I need before we leave. I started getting immunizations a few months ago. I got the Hepatitis A, I got the Hepatitis B, I got the typhoid and the yellow fever, I got the malaria, the rockin 'pneumonia and the boogy-woogy flu. So, the way I figure it, in the event of a major outbreak of anything, I will survive. Along with some cockroaches and possibly Keith Richards.
I have picked up my little travel size sunscreen (50spf), bug repellent (100% deet) and hand sanitizer (well, it's actually just sanitizer, I guess I will use it where ever it is customary to touch each other during a greeting).
Anyway, I just wanted to give everybody (or at least you people) a heads up and let you know I will be going soon. I am not really worried about where we are going, but am not looking forward to the travel back and forth. Each way will take just over 40 hours, with 5 flights each.I don't much like to fly, so with any luck, I will be seated somewhere behind the pastor so I can chug down some of those little airline drinks. Of course, on the last leg (Kenya Airways), they may serve their drinks in small viles. So, just pray that I get home safely and that Dionna can handle the kids (and the yardwork) while I'm gone.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
How Many Polacks
Somebody finally asked about the 'strange letter groupings' around my blog. I had set the language to Polish and had really expected somebody to say something sooner, but now I can finally get back to English (Thanks Brenda).
This may be my shortest post ever (enjoy it while it lasts).
This may be my shortest post ever (enjoy it while it lasts).
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The Ninth Inning
Sometimes things just don't go as you had hoped they would. Friday had been progressing pretty much as expected. Unfortunately, as expected, I was still waiting on a call from HP about our laptop (yeah, that's still unresolved, but that's a long story, as you may know).
We had planned on leaving the house at 6pm to get to the married night out thing at church. It was obvious that HP would not call before they closed at 6, so shortly before that I called one of their numbers to try to have them transfer me to the line I couldn't otherwise get through to. After about 10 minutes of talking to two different people, I got the infamous "There is nothing I can do".
[Strike one! I am getting so tired of HPs garbage that it immediately downgraded my mood a couple points]
It was then 6:07pm and by the time we got out of the house, it was 6:12.
[Strike two! I had been on the cell phone and assumed we would just jump in the car when everyone else was ready, but now we were running behind. One thing I really hate is being late. No matter where we are going and no matter how many other people are also going to be late, I hate it. I have a saying that I like to live by "Better never than late.", but I knew I could make up some time on freeway - mood teetering on another edge.]
Of course traffic was a little heavier than normal, but we eventually made it to the freeway on ramp. I was behind a bunch of cars putzing along.
[Strike three! You're Out. Another thing I really dislike is idiot drivers! Harsh? Yes, but you know as well as I do that they exist and they exist in large quantities. Now, some of these people are probably 'nice' and some of them are probably gainfully employed, some may even have friends, but let's be honest here: They can't drive worth a darn! I don't know why so many people are oblivious to the fact that on-ramps are lengthy and gently enter the freeway for a reason: so you can pick up enough speed to merge in with existing traffic! Otherwise there would just be stop signs. Now some of you are thinking (or maybe not) "Yeah, but in some bigger cities I've seen those stoplights on the on-ramp that let only one car through at a time. Yes, but when do they use those? During rush hour when the traffic is going like 2mph anyway. It really irritates me when people are going 40mph when we hit the freeway lanes.]
So as we rode our brakes onto the freeway, other traffic was passing us at a faster speed so it was nearly impossible to change lanes. I was finally able to momentarily get to the second lane on my way to the third lane to have some breathing room. As I cut across the second lane, the van in front of me tapped his brakes (going 60 must have shaken him up a bit). I continued on to the third lane, smoothly and what I considered safely. However, there was a differing opinion throughout the car and I was instructed to slow down.
[Strike four! Now we were definitely going to be late! I thought about just returning home (see saying-to-live-by above), but I couldn't get over to the exit; the slow lane was full of people going 40.]
So as I got comfortable in my slow ride down the freeway, I was instructed to go faster.
[Strike five! Nobody likes to be told how to drive, least wise me.]
I set the cruise at 65mph. About 3 seconds later I had to hit the brakes so as not to hit one of those people going 60 in the fast lane. Such was the drive to church.
We had been planning on saving seats for someone, let's call them 'Couple A', but it became apparent that they would be there before we were so we called them and asked them to save us seats instead.
We arrived about 5 minutes late, others were pulling in also, but as previously mentioned, that's beside the point.
Standing at the doorway of a very full room with the live music already going, we scanned for Couple A. I spotted them at a table; in the FRONT!
[Strike six! Two outs. Yes, right in front of the stage. I have always been a back row kind of guy. Just trying to blend into the background. From the back I can stretch, nod off, or even pick my nose and nobody knows. But in the front, I break out into a slight sweat, I am afraid to move so by the time the event is over, I usually have stiff joints and aching muscles.]
We didn't have much choice at that time and we could see three empty chairs beside Couple A. So after getting up the nerve to walk through a room full of crowded people up to the front, bobbing and weaving around the circular tables, I planted my self into the center empty seat. I was already feeling my body temperature rise (inversely proportional to the drop in my mood) as I just knew everyone in the room was now aware that we were late.
Then we were hit with the fact that the seats were actually already taken! I tried to move the next chair, but that was taken also. So there I was standing in front of everybody with no place to go.
[Strike seven! How embarrassing! Now what? Everyone was already watching every move we made, would we have to leave, regroup and then try again? ]
As luck (what little we had) would have it, the person who had been saving the seat (not Couple A, I might add), came by and insisted that we take the seats; who am I to argue. By that time my lovely wife was seated in the center seat so I sat in the one directly facing the back wall.
[Strike eight! Not only was I at the very front table, but I had my back to the stage. This was shaping up to be quite the evening of fun and laughter.]
Sitting sideways in my chair watching the entertainment, I tried to process what had just happened, it went something like this:
-I walked into a crowded room LATE.
-I walked to the front of the room as everyone watched.
-I sat in not one, not two, but three different chairs, all of which were taken.
-I ended up facing backward two feet from the stage.
Needless to say (well, not really, or else I wouldn't be saying it) I wasn't in the greatest of moods. But I knew that things should begin to improve and I was just trying to settle in and give my mood time to slowly get back to normal.
But wait, there's more. Let me give you a little background. I very very rarely ever, actually bordering on never, raise my hand. I didn't raise it in school (from the back row) even if I was the only one who knew the answer. I don't raise it when some random Pastor asks for a show of hands (most of which are for rhetorical questions anyway). I don't even raise it when I make a right hand turn on my bike.
So when the dude on stage came out and asked a question in which every person listening should have raised their hand, I didn't. I wasn't in the mood, and even if I was, I wouldn't have raised my hand. I, being in the front, knew what he was going to do as he walked over to me squinting through the lights and asked me to come up on stage.
[Strike nine!]
OK, a little more background. I don't do public speaking, I don't do stages. But just as quirky, I try not to act surprised, even if I don't know what's coming, but especially if I do know. So in an attempt to show that 1) I knew what was coming and 2) I wasn't going to raise my hand anyway (you can't make me), I stood up and went on stage.
But there is no way, under the circumstances, that he was going to get me to say what he wanted me to, and I didn't (that's my small victory for the night).
At that point I had 3 outs and the inning was over, finally.
We had planned on leaving the house at 6pm to get to the married night out thing at church. It was obvious that HP would not call before they closed at 6, so shortly before that I called one of their numbers to try to have them transfer me to the line I couldn't otherwise get through to. After about 10 minutes of talking to two different people, I got the infamous "There is nothing I can do".
[Strike one! I am getting so tired of HPs garbage that it immediately downgraded my mood a couple points]
It was then 6:07pm and by the time we got out of the house, it was 6:12.
[Strike two! I had been on the cell phone and assumed we would just jump in the car when everyone else was ready, but now we were running behind. One thing I really hate is being late. No matter where we are going and no matter how many other people are also going to be late, I hate it. I have a saying that I like to live by "Better never than late.", but I knew I could make up some time on freeway - mood teetering on another edge.]
Of course traffic was a little heavier than normal, but we eventually made it to the freeway on ramp. I was behind a bunch of cars putzing along.
[Strike three! You're Out. Another thing I really dislike is idiot drivers! Harsh? Yes, but you know as well as I do that they exist and they exist in large quantities. Now, some of these people are probably 'nice' and some of them are probably gainfully employed, some may even have friends, but let's be honest here: They can't drive worth a darn! I don't know why so many people are oblivious to the fact that on-ramps are lengthy and gently enter the freeway for a reason: so you can pick up enough speed to merge in with existing traffic! Otherwise there would just be stop signs. Now some of you are thinking (or maybe not) "Yeah, but in some bigger cities I've seen those stoplights on the on-ramp that let only one car through at a time. Yes, but when do they use those? During rush hour when the traffic is going like 2mph anyway. It really irritates me when people are going 40mph when we hit the freeway lanes.]
So as we rode our brakes onto the freeway, other traffic was passing us at a faster speed so it was nearly impossible to change lanes. I was finally able to momentarily get to the second lane on my way to the third lane to have some breathing room. As I cut across the second lane, the van in front of me tapped his brakes (going 60 must have shaken him up a bit). I continued on to the third lane, smoothly and what I considered safely. However, there was a differing opinion throughout the car and I was instructed to slow down.
[Strike four! Now we were definitely going to be late! I thought about just returning home (see saying-to-live-by above), but I couldn't get over to the exit; the slow lane was full of people going 40.]
So as I got comfortable in my slow ride down the freeway, I was instructed to go faster.
[Strike five! Nobody likes to be told how to drive, least wise me.]
I set the cruise at 65mph. About 3 seconds later I had to hit the brakes so as not to hit one of those people going 60 in the fast lane. Such was the drive to church.
We had been planning on saving seats for someone, let's call them 'Couple A', but it became apparent that they would be there before we were so we called them and asked them to save us seats instead.
We arrived about 5 minutes late, others were pulling in also, but as previously mentioned, that's beside the point.
Standing at the doorway of a very full room with the live music already going, we scanned for Couple A. I spotted them at a table; in the FRONT!
[Strike six! Two outs. Yes, right in front of the stage. I have always been a back row kind of guy. Just trying to blend into the background. From the back I can stretch, nod off, or even pick my nose and nobody knows. But in the front, I break out into a slight sweat, I am afraid to move so by the time the event is over, I usually have stiff joints and aching muscles.]
We didn't have much choice at that time and we could see three empty chairs beside Couple A. So after getting up the nerve to walk through a room full of crowded people up to the front, bobbing and weaving around the circular tables, I planted my self into the center empty seat. I was already feeling my body temperature rise (inversely proportional to the drop in my mood) as I just knew everyone in the room was now aware that we were late.
Then we were hit with the fact that the seats were actually already taken! I tried to move the next chair, but that was taken also. So there I was standing in front of everybody with no place to go.
[Strike seven! How embarrassing! Now what? Everyone was already watching every move we made, would we have to leave, regroup and then try again? ]
As luck (what little we had) would have it, the person who had been saving the seat (not Couple A, I might add), came by and insisted that we take the seats; who am I to argue. By that time my lovely wife was seated in the center seat so I sat in the one directly facing the back wall.
[Strike eight! Not only was I at the very front table, but I had my back to the stage. This was shaping up to be quite the evening of fun and laughter.]
Sitting sideways in my chair watching the entertainment, I tried to process what had just happened, it went something like this:
-I walked into a crowded room LATE.
-I walked to the front of the room as everyone watched.
-I sat in not one, not two, but three different chairs, all of which were taken.
-I ended up facing backward two feet from the stage.
Needless to say (well, not really, or else I wouldn't be saying it) I wasn't in the greatest of moods. But I knew that things should begin to improve and I was just trying to settle in and give my mood time to slowly get back to normal.
But wait, there's more. Let me give you a little background. I very very rarely ever, actually bordering on never, raise my hand. I didn't raise it in school (from the back row) even if I was the only one who knew the answer. I don't raise it when some random Pastor asks for a show of hands (most of which are for rhetorical questions anyway). I don't even raise it when I make a right hand turn on my bike.
So when the dude on stage came out and asked a question in which every person listening should have raised their hand, I didn't. I wasn't in the mood, and even if I was, I wouldn't have raised my hand. I, being in the front, knew what he was going to do as he walked over to me squinting through the lights and asked me to come up on stage.
[Strike nine!]
OK, a little more background. I don't do public speaking, I don't do stages. But just as quirky, I try not to act surprised, even if I don't know what's coming, but especially if I do know. So in an attempt to show that 1) I knew what was coming and 2) I wasn't going to raise my hand anyway (you can't make me), I stood up and went on stage.
But there is no way, under the circumstances, that he was going to get me to say what he wanted me to, and I didn't (that's my small victory for the night).
At that point I had 3 outs and the inning was over, finally.
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