Nomad's Pub

Hello Again, Nairobi...

Yes, I’m back in the city again and it is a strange thing to have once more porcelain toilets, hot running water (even running water, really), lots of cars around, paved roads, silverware, electrical power… and the list goes on. I find myself continuing to eat with my fingers, not sleeping well with the city noises, waking up super early though I can finally sleep in, suffering chai withdrawal, and still checking myself for fleas.

I miss Marsabit a lot… the pace of life; the JeyJey Centre; the office I worked in and the staff there I had the privilege of working with; eating ugali and stew; wandering the dirt streets; greeting all the people I had come to know and being greeted in return with the name I was baptised with (as they term it) up there. I want to eat nyamachoma again; sing Galata hoo galata again; go back out to Karare for another week; barter in the market; get up to the Chalbi desert and stare at the sand and the millions of stars visible; and have my dress made to go with the shawls that I still wrap myself in even back here in the city.

I want people to know where I’ve been, and that it is a good place; a lovely place. A harsh place, but with wonderful people whom I miss very much.

But instead I am here in Nairobi, faced with a 20+ page paper, a 2-5 page paper, a 2 hour presentation to prepare and give over the weekend (after the 12 hour travel by bus back to Kampala), still more goodbyes to say… But on the positive side, I do have friends in the city now, so I had dinner out at a Chinese restaurant with a fellow MK in town ( I mean, in city), lunch out Sunday with my fellow students here and two other friends (French toast!!!), dinner out Sunday at the country director’s house for the NGO I worked with up in Marsabit, and yes. Many more contacts and other dinner appointments coming up in these next few days…

It’s hard to believe that in a week I will be flying back home to Europe. April is drawing to a close… the countdown has begun, and now that I have said what is for me perhaps the hardest goodbye, I almost wish everything else would just hurry up and be over with already.

But then again… I am by no means in a rush to leave, either. Especially not Kenya.

posted by Lada @ 9:06 AM