It’s hard to say what’s more fun – being completely away from all the distractions and normal responsibilities that consume my life or the challenges inherent with adapting to a culture and ways that are not my own.
Take the whole notion of affection. A girl can get lonely. That is why God invented giraffes. Despite the warnings of giraffes butting your head if they don’t get a treat (aren’t we all like that just a little bit?) I went for it. A Piece of giraffe kibble between my lips and a come hither glance – and voila! The picture speaks a thousand words.
Let’s take the driving here. We all know how much I love being in a car hurtling through space especially in the dark and on two lane roads. Add to this the fact that the kooky Kenyans drive ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD which has me perpetually looking the wrong way at this stage!!! My other favourite part is a little game the drivers like to play that I call “Chicken”. Basically – this is how it goes: you drive along a (really any) two-lane road that will take you somewhere. You are behind a slower moving vehicle and you decide to “overtake” (pass) them. Let me mention at this point that overtaking is illegal. So, you pull out from behind the slower car and drive in the wrong (or I say right) lane for a bit until the appearance of an oncoming has you hunting for a spot to squeeze back into your normal lane. Here is where it gets interesting: if the person careening towards you flashes their headlights – it means look out, they’re not going to slow down, That goes either for the “overtaker” who is letting the oncoming car know they must move over, or for the oncoming car to know that the it’s “overtake or bust” on the part of the car now heading for them in their lane.
On our way out to dinner tonight in Martin’s car – an “overtaker” didn’t leave himself enough room and smacked into the side of our car as he was returning into our lane. Turns out the smasher was a mechanic. A mechanic without a licence. A mechanic who said that his shocks pulled him over to the left causing his accident. A mechanic who probably shouldn’t be working on cars? (We are all fine by the way…) The ensuing discussion took about 30 minutes and cemented for me the fact that once men get together to talk about cars – even smacked ones – it can take a while…
It had been a great day with a trip to Bomas which is a cool place that has examples of different tribes’ village huts from back in the day.
My favourite new Kenyan saying happened during the cultural show that was put on at Bomas and featured, singers, dancers and acrobats. At one point, the announcer described that the next dance we were going to see was “danced by both men and women at weddings, festivals, burials and other joyous celebrations.”
Hmmm…I guess it would depend on the person??