The first personal essay I remember writing at St Gertrude’s Grammar School on East Main St.(must have been 4th or 5th grade) was entitled, “A Costly Chronometer.” I can recall nothing but the title, itself solid evidence of a thesaurus on too low a shelf. Most other assigned first person writings fell into the “what I did on such and such an occasion” well. I want to have one more drink from there.

The occasion is two days ago, Monday, April 7th. It was, like many others, an unpolished gem of a day, a tune in ordinary time. Its only recommendation is that it happened, and here it is. Like all sensible small works, it has a lot of pictures.

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I started the day early in downtown Nairobi. This is a view of the vendors just beginning to set up on the backside of the City Market on Biashara St.
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As you may know, I’m a little nutty for signs I find that strike me as being a little nutty themselves. Here’s a couple I had found earlier and captured this Monday morning. When life seems a little too hectic, too stressful, you can stop in for a break here at the COMA CENTER, get connected, and within seconds feel as calm and serene as the two happy customers relaxing on the center’s cozy balcony.And, in case you’re worried about the tangle of electrodes and wires and such, rest easy. As the sign says, this is…

This was just across the street. Seems as though there may be a size requirement for being chosen.

While I was in Nairobi, I was reunited with Tony, but Joseph was, unfortunately at the funeral of his sister-in-law. I met with Hope, from our lawyer’s office, and spoke about land title searches and transferral issues on our two acre parcel, our name search, organizational constitution, and the status of our efforts to become registered in Kenya as an international NGO (non-governmental organization), a necessary step for us, the real current and backstory to the upheaval in Kenya, in particular, the continuing suffering of a couple of hundred thousand IDP’s (internally displaced persons), in the Rift valley and Nyanza Province, and her plans to leave Kenya for New York in late April to study at NYU.

I made an appointment to meet next week with our engineer and rammed earth building expert, and the architect we have been working with. Then I went shopping for Joyce. Monte had given me some money to help her. I bought 12 kilos of ugali(maize) flour, four kilos of dried rosecoco red beans, 5 kilos of rice, 1 kilo of loose leaf tea, 2 kilos of sugar, a kilo of salt, 4 kilos of cooking fat, 1.5 kilos of Toss laundry soap, and a bag of toffee twists. Loaded it up in the truck and headed for home, about 40 kilometers southeast. It used to be about a 45 minute drive over really bad roads. Now it is an hour and a half to three hour nightmare over the diversions (detours) while the Mombasa Road is being rebuilt. Driving is by far the most dangerous and stressful thing I do here regularly. The best estimate is that we’re about two years away from a decent road. People I know who were going to replace a vehicle won’t now because the roads now will massacre it in its childhood. Our brave Toyota pick up, raised for seven years on the dreamy roads in the shadow of Mt Fuji, has been tossed to the wolves. I know it loves its life here and is bursting with purpose and pride, but its skeleton and ligaments are under constant, severe attack. I like driving. It relaxes me. From Stockton to San Francisco heals me. But I haven’t for one second really let down behind the wheel here. Motor transport here is at the top of my short list of things that really defy description.

But, as always, we find our way home. The home stretch now is a semi-secret two track dirt road that brings me in behind our property.

That’s our folks working on the far edge of the property down there.

A little closer look. From the left, Julius, Esther, Boniface, Agnes and Joyce.

And Joyce in her unhinged working bend.

I picked up Gilbert who had been working and supervising and we headed to Joyce’s where Mbini and Anna were holding down the fort.

Nduko seemed as glad to see us as we were her.

We unloaded all the food and  drove about seven kilometers to Camp Lukenya, my friend Joel’s place where he holds weeklong camps for all sorts of Kenyan kids there. He’s a good friend and knows just about everything about building, plumbing, electricity, welding, pumps, and other mysterious things. He’s a lifelong Kenya resident, and knows the warp and woof of this place. His son is building a house there on the same black cotton soil we have. It requires special treatment (read-removal) when building on it.

They were pouring the foundation the next day and so Gilbert and I checked it out.

I learned how to use this sight level in the bargain, but I had to wait my turn. The ostrich right behind it wasn’t quite finished.

On the way back we saved this crew the five km hike home.

And passed one of our neighbors chatting away with five liters of water on her head.

Back at Joyce’s again, Josephine, Agnes’ daughter and the good luck cat…

couldn’t have been happier to see us.

Esther, who was one of the folks working at our place that day came by with Ani, her baby.

And Agnes got Josephine a little cozier against the evening chill.

The sun was sinking over the Ngong  Hills

while this chicken seemed busy looking for the rest of his feathers. Gilbert told me that there is a Kenyan superstition/custom that if you have a guest that you’d rather not have return, you  kill a chicken like this and cook it for them.  “It works, too,” he said. I believe it.

Mbini and Anna, who had been gone for a while returned.

And Anna wound up where anyone wound like to be.

Meanwhile, Josephine was warming up nicely.

And Agnes was pouring a small, plastic bag of fresh milk into the boiling sufria of tea.

I think Anna was telling Joyce she wanted me to hold her,

because that where she wound up just a few seconds later,

with a large handful of my nose.

And like children the world over, was soon expressing her sincere love…of my sunglasses.

Ester strained the tea before serving it.

That’s my shoe on the right and Gilbert’s knee on the left, and the highly prized, rarely seen at Joyce’s, sliced, white loaf bread.

Joyce, Josephine, Nduko, a boy and a young man I met there that night, whose names I don’t know, and Mbini and Anna. I asked Gilbert later about the bread and the fresh milk. He said that was where Mbini had gone after we arrived and bought it at the small kiosk down the road. It was in our honor.

We sat and watched the last light fade. The time here when everything changes. And then Gilbert and I walked down to the truck together, shook hands, committed each other to God’s good grace and parted.
And wherever you were on Monday, April 7th, at last light, if you happened to look, you may have seen something just like this.

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That was the news here for Monday,  April 7th. Don’t be a stranger.

David
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Posted on April 9th, 2008 by david
Filed under: David's Journal