1/31/10 – 2/1/10 SOME SNAPSHOTS FROM THE KODAK CAROUSEL THAT MY JOURNEY HERE HAS QUICKLY AND RETROSPECTIVELY BECOME:

- ordering waaaay too much food in an apparently renowned and definitely crowded diner in New York State (?) with my family. Our waitress raised her eyes at us, so I quickly explained that I was leaving for Africa the next day. When about half that food ended up in styrofoam take-home containers, she suggested I bring it to Africa. Which I deserved.

- learning three games from my new friends in the Newark airport:

1. Find The SFS Student (look for: roving eyes, tan program t-shirt visible through sweatshirt zipper, too-much-baggage-stagger) (we considered this safari practice)

2. Egyptian Rat Screw, which is like slapjack but scarier. I lost all my cards embarrassingly early and got to spend the rest of the time admiring everyone else’s reflexes and hoping that if one of us ends up having to slap a snake, or a baboon, or an actual Egyptian Rat, it’s not me.

3. a game I didn’t catch the name of in which someone thinks of a thing and everyone else has to guess it in some way that’s more complicated than 20 questions. I got out pretty quickly again. My word was “waffle” . . . hopefully I’ll learn better improper nouns in Kenya.

- everyone who lives in the 21^st century should be required to sit slightly reclined in the “Premium Economy” section of a two-story plane thinking about how one of the ingredients in the airplane bathroom soap is “aroma” and listening to Lady Gaga on a “complimentary” headset (ok, the headset really was complimentary, I just got carried away/miss Dan).

- riding around on the Underground, getting some practice feeling like a tourist (or “mamafuzi” in Kenya, or “bloody daft Yankee wot wot” in London). Everyone could tell we were tourists because we a. were not wearing puffy black jackets b. couldn’t stop cooing over the names of the subway stops (“Piccadilly Circus”? “Chorleywood”? “Tooting Bec”!?!?) c. were taking pictures of completely mundane things, like “Mind the Gap” written in yellow on the cement next to the rails, or the horrifying public service announcements about how you shouldn’t get into unlicensed cabs d. were surprised that there actually is such a thing as an “English breakfast” (sausage, eggs, tomato, and sauteed mushrooms).

- my first sleepwalking experience! in the center (or ‘centre’) of London. Except instead of falling asleep and then starting to walk around, I was walking around and then I fell asleep and continued walking, directly into an oncoming jogger.

- seeing the armed guards at Buckingham Palace. I was afraid of their muskets, or whatever they are, until I saw their fuzzy hats (and remembered the word ‘musket’). About 12 hours later I saw the armed guards on the highway out of Nairobi, and they were holding AK-47s, just kind of swinging them around. So I got all the scared knocked into and out of me pretty quick.

(I didn’t like England that much . . . not nearly as much as a lot of American cities I’ve been to. This may have been because I was so tired, or because we were deliberately trying to “see the sights” (or “viddy it all” . . . clockwork orange? no? ok) without spending money and so we mostly just walked very quickly past a bunch of important monuments without touring them or anything. I did really like that there were little well-graffitied (suspiciously well-graffitied, actually . . . perhaps professionally graffitied, if such a thing is possible) skate parks all over the place, because skateboard wheels sound like the ocean. And I liked that there was weird-flavored Gatorade (blackcurrant!), and that Darwin is on the ten pound note. But there’s nothing particularly London-y about any of those things, they’re just interesting to me because they’re foreign. I’ll have to go back sometime (maybe with Laila, who seems to know all the good places) and gain a more nuanced appreciation. But I’m glad I didn’t go abroad there.)

- The second flight, from Heathrow to Nairobi, I mostly spent trying to sleep. I don’t think it worked but cannot, at this point, be sure.

- The first thing I read in the Nairobi airport was a bumper sticker that said “Relax, You’re On Kenya Time!” But the cigarette warning labels here are much bigger and blunter than American ones: “smoking causes ageing of the skin” “smoking reduces blood flow and may cause impotence” all the way down to “smoking harms you and those around you” and “smokers die younger.”

- Stopping twice on the 4-hour Jeep drive from Nairobi Airport to our field station – once at a Kenyan convenience store/fast food place, and once at a curio shop. In the convenience store I got to use Kenyan shillings for the first time . . . TO BUY ICE CREAM THAT COMES IN A PLASTIC BALL! you eat the ice cream, which is terrible as ice cream goes, and then you get to play with the plastic ball, which is also terrible, even though you wouldn’t think a plastic ball could even manage that, but the combination is amazing (in this way, it is like a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell). The curio shop sold almost the same things as that guy sells on the street near Barts in Amherst. The rocks in the parking lot were all pumice-y and volcanic.

I think I’m treating all of this lightly in writing because I’m so overwhelmed. This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been (and if it’s the most beautiful place I ever am, I will have no deathbed complaints). Riding from the airport to the field station we saw giraffes along the side of the road. GIRAFFES! ALONG THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND NOT IN CAGES. I don’t feel like I can begin to describe it because I’m going to fall short, you know? That’ll fade a little, though, it always does, and then I’ll feel less verbally incapacitated.

We got to camp around 5 and spent the rest of the day being introduced to people, introducing ourselves to people, moving into our bandas (mine’s called “Duma” which means cheetah. I got so lucky! Especially since there’s a banda called “Panya”, aka“rat”, and one called “Popomingi”, aka “lots of bats”), and wandering around looking amazed. I think I’ll write about camp life when I know more about it, especially since this first update is gargantuan already and I know you all have jobs and homework and outside lives (congratulations if you’ve made it this far!) but as of now it seems like summer camp, to the degree that I’m now finally happy that I went to summer camp, because I know what to do (so thank you, Mom and Dad, for sending me to summer camp . . . I finally say this sincerely).

And now I’m sitting on the stoop of my banda. Most of my fellow travelers are asleep. And I’m digging onion thorns out of the soles of my sneakers and wondering how they managed that despite the frogs and the steel drum music coming out of the staff house and the sleeptalking monkeys and the flickery stars (the stars can afford to be flickery because there are so endlessly many of them that if one goes out no one will even notice). It’s too much! But I still feel like I’ve been drawn onto tracing paper and laid on top of my surroundings, and maybe a good sleep will help me sink into them a little better. I’ll let you know. And thanks again for reading!