Monday, July 31.
Doesn't it feel so good when you come home from a really long workout, you take a nice, warm shower, and you put on your clean, dry clothes? I almost had that experience today except that instead of a warm shower, I had a cold bucket shower, and instead of a clean dry clothes, I had to wear the same clothes which smelled like a goat. The only clean piece of clothes I had was my underwear. But it was actually quite nice taking a shower with cold water. Sine the weather isn't very warm here, when I shower with warm water (I have to boil some water in the pot, and mix it with cold water in a bucket), the water would evaporate off my skin and I would feel even colder. So it was actually better to use cold water. That's why in a very hot day, you should take a shower with hot water, so you can feel cool after the shower.
So what's this "workout" that I'm talking about? Basically, pastor and I rode bicycles all the way to Namanga. It was an hour ride each way going up and down some hills. I thought Rev. Kim would come to Kiluani today, so I figured he could pick me up to go to Lenkijape, but apparently he went straight to Lenkijape. I couldn't get a hold of him either. So I was just sitting in the clinic watching as PuiMeng saw the patients. The day was warm, so I was actually dozing off while I sat there. The thing is, many of the patients have similar problems, so it was almost like seeing the same patient over and over. It's really good to know what the common problems and needs are for these people. If I ever come back to Maasai (I just found out that's how you really spell it) in the future as a doctor, I would be more efficient knowing their needs. Anyway, as I was dozing off, pastor came by and saved me from boredom. He was going to the post office in Namanga, and we were going to take a matatu, but decided to ride the bicycle instead.
Being a musungu in rural Africa is like being a celebrity, or perhaps a rafiki (friend in kiswahili) to all the kids. As I pedaled through the main road, kids would wave at me and shout "Hallo--!" and "Hawayoo-!" They would jump up and down and keep shouting even after I wave them back. I wonder who tells them to do that when they see a musungu. I'm sure they teach in schools how to greet a musungu (or just in English). It's funny because no matter how you greet somebody, they would reply "fine." I though they just anticipated to say "How are you?" but I had multiple occasions where I was greeted back with a "Fine" when I said "Hi." In kiswahili, you say "habari" (short for "how are you") and the other person would say "mzuri" (good). In kimaasai, you greet someone with "soba" and the person would reply "eba." You can also greet someone of similar age by saying, "hawaiya" and the person would say "hawaiya" back. I think I've said this before, but kids greet older people by bowing their head slightly, and the older person would touch their heads. They can start shaking hands once they are circumcised. Anyhow, I've digressed a lot from talking about my bike ride to Namanga.
At Namanga, I was greeted by strangers with "Konnichiwa" ("hello" in Japanese), "An-nyung-ha-sae-yo" (the same in Korean), and some random phrase that sounded like Chinese. Some people would just yell, "Chinese." In Sierra Leone, some people called me "China." I guess being called "Chinese" is better than "China." Though people greeted me, I tried to avoid them in Namanga. It's a border city, and a lot of musungu pass through there. I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to sell something to me. There are many traditional Maasai ladies (mostly very old) selling Maasai necklaces and bracelets. After stopping by at the post office, we went to a small café for a bottle soda and some mandazi (kind of like deep fried chapati). I met Selei, Lemomo's younger brother there. After that, we rode our bicycles across the border to Tanzania. Actually, there's nothing that really looks like a boarder except for a wide dusty space with shops on both sides. There are the immigration offices where I bought my visa, but people can go back and forth between Kenya and Tanzania as they wish. I thought that was quite strange. Now I'm thinking maybe I didn't have to spend $50 just to get a visa. But I guess it's an "insurance" incase you get stopped by a police for some reason. For musungus, the passport is the ID, although I wasn't carrying my passport when I went to Namanga.
On the way back from Namanga, we saw a herd of camels. So we stopped to take pictures, then the guy tending the camels tried to stop us saying he wants money for the picture. Then the pastor asked if the camels belonged t him. Then it turns out he's just a worker looking after the animals. So we went ahead and took the pictures. As soon as we passed the big group of camels, we saw a few of them that were much bigger than the others. I thought I was looking at a miniature of brontosaurus. Their back was about 8 feet hight and their head even higher. Then the shepherd came back and told us we could take as many pictures as we wanted. He even let me touch the camel.
After two hours of bike ride on a rock-hard seat, my butt is quite sore. It was definitely a good exercise though. I needed it to burn away some goat fat that I had last night.
For dinner, we had a soup made of goat intestines. They cut open the stomach, washed it, and boiled it with the neck. The boys were keeping the head, so I took the tongue and roasted it. The tongue was pretty good, but the soup was pretty disgusting. The taste wasn't so bad, but the smell was nasty. I couldn't finish it, so I gave half of my plate to Henry. He was very happy to finish it. The guys cook and eat separately, and they said they were going to roast the head tonight. I'm sure they're done eating by now. They said they'll save a piece for me to eat tomorrow... We'll see how it turns out. I wonder which part of the head I'll get.
I'm tired of blowing off little bugs off my screen every two seconds. So I'm going to turn off the computer now. I'll start writing with a pen and paper tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be going to Lenkijape.
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