Merry Christmas

At 6am, Dad called to wish me a merry Christmas. I was half asleep, and also the apartment is small so I didn’t want to wake everyone up, so the call was brief. I don’t think he realized the time difference, but if anyone wants to call me my number is

254-0711-766-952

But remember I’m 8 hours ahead of everyone, mmk?
Mama Sophie came in a few hours later, wishing Christine and I a merry Christmas as that it was time to get up and prepare for our camping trip to Lake Naivasha, which is a little over 60km north of Nairobi.
As I was packing my sports clothes, I couldn’t help but notice that the other girls were wearing heels, nice jeans and shirts, and carrying purses. I was really confused by this, and even more confused when I noted that they weren’t packing any cooking supplies or the mini gas cooker. I figured Moses, their neighbor who was driving us, had packed all of that – but no, he didn’t.
It all made sense by the time we got to Crayfish Camp, and Christine told me none of them had ever gone camping before. They thought the campsite would just have everything for them. And it wasn’t even a hardcore campsite – it had a lodging area, bar, pool, and restaurant too, but they were all terribly overpriced to the point where I wouldn’t even pay those prices in the States. The camp ground seemed like a place where Kenyans vacationed for the holidays, because I only saw about two or three mzungos. So I couldn’t figure out what Kenyan would pay 750F for a meal, when most meals only cost 80F. The girls and Moses looked so helpless, and I suggested that maybe we could go into town and buy some maize and a gas cooker, which would be only 2000F total versus eating at the campsite for 4000F for all in total.
So we drove into town, and I kept thinking we were going to a supermarket. But no no no. They stopped at a restaurant, where we sat down and ate, and then Sophie ordered an entire chicken for later on. And then we went back to the campsite. I asked Sophie how she expected to heat up the chicken, and she paused and said “We’ll just find someone to do it for us”. Oy. Oy oy. Novices.
I’ve also gotten a better idea about the PEV and why it was such a big deal that a kikuyu President was elected and why Lua people were so pissed off. Luas think that kikuyu’s are thieves and cheat people out of their money. Sophie says that they are talented business men and looove money. This, of course, is a stereotype – however, there are some kikuyu that really hold true to this stereotype. For example, we went out on a boat ride on Lake Naivasha and were having a pleasant time with the 5 of us, and then these other two people. The driver took us past some swimming hippos (which are HUGE! Like several tons!) and told us that there is only one male allowed per herd, and if a son is born the father of the herd will kill off the son. He was telling us other nature facts about the lake, and it was fun until we got back to shore and were paying the guy. The driver and the two other people seemed to be friends, and were trying to bully Moses into paying for not only the 5 of us, but the two extra people as well. This makes NO sense what so ever, and I don’t know how they could even have suggested such a thing, but that debacle took at least 30 minutes, while the two guys were talking to one another in kikuyu trying to figure out how to scam Moses. So Sophie told them to f-off and that we were just going to pay at the office. We all started walking away and the guy and the driver followed and pestered Moses half way, when they realized that if they went to the office with us they would get fired and just took the money that Moses was offering. It was so ridiculous and so stereotypical. It would be interesting to know what kikuyu stereotype luas to be, though.
So we hung around the campsite, talking, watching this show called Churchill Live, which is some satirical comedy on Kenyan life. I didn’t get all of it because I’m not from here, but there were several Obama jokes, and then my favorite about how cotton balls were put on xmas trees to represent snow…in Kenya.
By the end of that show, we were hungry and I watched as Sophie tried to convince the kitchen to heat up our chicken for us. Our entire chicken. She’s a good sweet talker though, and finally convinced them to after about 40 minutes (seriously, it would have been easier to make our own fire and do it). After dinner, the girls wanted to have a camp fire because everyone else had one, so I watched for a few minutes as they struggled to make one. It was funny and so pathetic at the same time, watching three women in heels and a guy in nice khakis and dress shirt try to make this thing. Finally I cut in and helped them, and then an Indian group next to us let me borrow some flame and we finally got it going.
One of the guys, Sid, was so friendly so I left Sophie and Moses at the fire and walked over with Sid to his camp area. He and his family and friends were playing this sequence game, and he let me play. Sid would walk away and his friend Al’m would ask me to pick a number between 1-10, then Al’m would put objects in some RANDOM order that made no sense what so ever, Sid would come back, and guess the number. This went on for about an hour, and I knew that there was some kind of trick going on but I couldn’t figure it out and felt like a total ass, but then I noticed that Al’m would have his hands on his knees when Sid came over, and would have the number I told him displayed on his hands. It was quite clever and disguised really well, so we went back to Sophie and the girls are tried it on them. They couldn’t figure it out, and thought that they were getting the “sequence” for awhile, but guess what, there is no sequence! Try it with your friends one time, it’s pretty funny watching people try to make sense of nothing.
Al’m turned out to be really cool, in fact all of them were and their father offered us some Indian tea which I like just as much as Kenyan tea. Al’m is a DJ in Nairobi and invited me to one of his gigs this weekend, so maybe I’ll go if Christine wants to go. They invited me over to have some sheesha, but I’d had enough of that in Egypt so I declined, climbed into my tent, and slept with the sounds of the nearby disco blasting until about 4am. Oh yea, people here like to go out clubbing on Christmas. It’s the opposite in the US, where everyone stays at home with their family. Weird, right?