Day 14

Tuesday June 3, 2008

Return to Rongai.

Fully trained in the art of Mattatu navigation I set out to catch the 125 to Rongai. This involved the 35-minute walk to downtown and then picking a van with a good seat. I like one by the window so I can keep cool. I also like one at the front and on the side. Therefore, one has to shop for a Mattatu, but only with the peripheral vision, because as soon as they can tell you are looking their way the scramble and pressure is on, full force.

As I approached the launch site the perfect Mattatu door opened with the best possible seat. I jumped in last, thus filling the van and meaning no more stops to harangue people into the seats. We were off to the outskirts of town. Except, unlike yesterday, this was a busy workday. The streets were jammed with vehicles and it took a lot of time to get to an open road.

Eventually, we were doing good, but then came to a long line of cars. At the front was a large vehicle that was dying on a long uphill climb. That’s when it became interesting. A number of the vans immediately shifted to the shoulder on the opposite side of the street and just kept driving. This was a two-lane road, that they made a three-lane road with the middle lane going the opposite direction. We did this for a good long time until we had passed the jam and then slid back onto the open asphalt. It felt crazy, but not particularly unsafe. I think in the US there would have been police and arrests, but in Africa it seemed such a normal way to solve a problem.

The door handler tapped me on the shoulder and told me I had been good luck when I got in the van because they had a full load all the way, and that was unusual. I hopped off in the middle of town and Maurice was right behind me. He had also just gotten to Rongai from being at the University.

Rose Ndicho

Rose is a member of Maurice’s church. She is an older woman from Tanzania. She does not speak English so the whole interview had to be done by translator. Which actually was fun. It gave plenty of time to think of the next questions, to watch the facial expressions, to listen to humor and tone.

We sat in her living room. It could only be called a shack, and the only word we have to describe the area was slum. These certainly are not permanent structure built to any code, but life cobbled together out of the refuse of life.

Inside though Rose was kind and generous and very inviting. She had a warm smile and gentle manner. She played with a grandbaby while we talked until he grew tired and crawled up next to her and feel asleep. Then she trimmed the excess off a bag she was weaving. The metallic ‘slink, slink” of the worn out scissors became the accompaniment track of the movie. With the lag time in translation, this hour was so nourishing to me. No matter what the trappings I was in a home, a home of love and hard work. It felt so good. I rode happily back into Nairobi in a Mattatu decorated with the faces of famous black politicians and leaders: Kofee Anann, Barak Obama, Colin Powell, Condelesa Rice, and Nelson Mandela. The music was happy and so was I.

The Public Library

I stopped at an Internet Café, but the Internet was not working. I decided to try the public library. I have passed the building many times and it says that it has Internet access, so I gave it a try. The place was packed. I think they were giving an accounting test. I got online, but the connection was very slow and I could not get the blog to work, so I just read and sent some email.

I went back after lunch at Flora (we had ground meat pie, broccoli, fruit and a dessert cake!). I spent the rest of the afternoon doing research on my paper. I found three really good books and took a bunch of notes. Then I began to look at their AIDS materials at about 4:00. I picked up a book called The River and 2.5 hours later I had devoured a good chunk of the book and they turned the lights off and chased those of us remaining out of the library. I plan to go back.

Flora Evenings

I had dinner (mystery meat and potatoes), some tea and then worked on my research. I wrote up the notes of my interview and incorporated some new material that Rose had told me that helped round out the first section of my paper. I have finished 8 pages. I will complete the book research by Thursday night and I plan to write a 5 page section on Friday. We will travel to Nyanza on Saturday, so I will not get any more writing done until the following Monday. The last five pages are a conclusion and I will wait to write them the last week, so that I can incorporate my final interviews.