The Orange Hat

I can't feel my right index finger :(

Books stores are a concept in my mind that have been shattered by thin piece of plastic wrapping paper, which prevents me from opening a plethora of knowledge and joy.


Oh I've been working with Wiki's :)

http://aieseckenyatn.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

the reasons for this wiki are listed, and some TN's know about this and why it exist.

This is step 1 in working for more inner lc relations for people who:
a) have time to interact
b) don't know everyone in Nairobi
c)want more activities to than the average student

I would also like to make someway to contact more people in @ Kenya, but it's a work in progress

I'm liking this info-structure stuff

I know some people might have issues with this, but I don't care, I'm doing this on my own time:)

I have a little voice in my right ear. It sounds like a sound that really isn’t a sound, it’s the absence of sounds- but not really, because if you’ve every been in a dry cave, or a deep basements, or had a very odd dream then you know what silence doesn’t sound like. My sound is a sound from the place where you normally interpret sound. I imagine it would be like seeing light that isn’t there, and your optic nerve is more or less saying “fuck you” over and over again, in a happy little voice that those overly pleasant dolls from matel look like they should be saying.

That’s the non-sound in my right ear that muffles everything else to the simplistic yet comical cacophony of a ill-played trumpet, underwater. I tried to think of it as “character,” but when things have “character” it’s something you learn to love or use to your advantage, or smile to yourself when you think about it, even though it’s trouble some – character is something you love, like a spoiled brat who doesn’t pay rent on time because he knows his parents will cover for him, and everything will be ok, that’s “character.”

My ear is not full of character, it’s broken.

And let me assure you I do use this to my advantage.

When I sleep at night, I never have to cover one ear. When I’m in a bar with some ninny who I really don’t have any interest in after she’s alluded to not having a ride home, or a friend who was supposed to give them money and she won’t stop talking, I make sure she’s on my right. In Matatus I can put my ear right up to the speaker to block out most of the noise which could possible rebound and go into my other ear.

Not having a sense can be beneficial, I won’t deny that. But it’s a pain in the ass only hear the left audio in head phones when it’s dull audio, or constantly turn my head when in a meeting.

I don’t see this as a punishment for something I did, or fate, or even try to convince my self that I believe any of that bullshit, because I would be lying. It just happened, like the HIV that’s here, like the poverty, like the malnutrition, the brownish yellow veins in the eye where it should be white, the bad teeth that people never bothered to fix, the contorted legs, the paraplegic I pass everyday and don’t so much as nod at him.

Yeah, this was a bitchy note, but I had a change of mind while writing it. Those are my true feelings, and looking at other people sufferings doesn’t make me feel better about my own, but my ear really doesn’t make me depressed, or angry. It is annoying, but so is listening to rap music on the bus everyday, and there’s nothing I can do about that.

So just like right now, as I hear the little screaming non-sound, I smile and say “damn it’s good to be alive.”

Matatus' are like Water in a river
They go from one place to another
but always to low points
there are obstacles

city limits
traffic
you
massive mud puddles

but they always find a way around
never stopping
you can trajec the path of a Matatu
By the place it's going
Don't rely on the rout
just follow the path

If you don't know the area
it can be confusing
but at times
much like a river
it's very efficient

April 14th
Yesterday I went to the Kenya Cup!
There were horses
British people
Baggett’s, bree, and cake
Even some gouda
I should not bet

Lazy weekends, I need to have occasionally.
Time just to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Sleep in late
Go to bed early
Read, drink tea, watch the sun rise and then set
Porches are nice for such occasions


Article of the Day!:

-Beer, Wine, and the Glass bottles which Shine.
The most common beer in Kenya is by far: Tusker. Everywhere you go bars will be stocked full of 500 ml brown glass bottles of Tusker and it’s sibling Pilsner. East African Brewing Company located in Kenya makes both lagers. Prices range from a bare bottom minimum of 70 ksh to 150+ ksh in a bar. The precious liquid never comes in a can or surprisingly from a tap, with rare exception. Recently I’ve been pricing Tusker around Nairobi; in it’s various containers and found my results to me somewhat surprising by American standards. The cheapest overall I found tusker for 70 ksh at central, a local police bar which is right off the University of Nairobi campus, and on sale at Nakumart (the largest grocery store chain in Kenya) for also 70 ksh a bottle. Cans of Tusker beer sell for 75-85 ksh at Nakumart (with the occasional sale “buy two get a third free,” when the expiration date is coming up.

Cans are always more expensive than the lowest priced bottle. This is very odd since the cost of making of a can by pressing sheet metal, and bending of parts is much cheaper than the heating, molding, and cooling of glass. Turns out recycling facilities here are both better and worse than in the states in terms of their accessibility. When you buy a bottle of Tusker, you are actually paying a down payment of about 10 ksh or less for the bottle (so the beer is about 60 ksh) which you can return to Nakumart or any seller of Tusker and reclaim your deposit – this is true of any bottle, Coke, Sprite, Fanta, all of which are sold cheaper in glass than plastic or in cans.

A can, cannot be returned- it is a final sale. I have yet to find a location where aluminum is recycled, or a can, can be taken to. Where bottles are taken back to the factory and cleaned (many times you can find the left over residue of a sticker on the outside from a different beer) cans have to be remade and re-sealed- which I believe to be a more expensive process than rebottling a bottle that has already been produced.

*I recently talked with a friend who claims that whenever you leave cans outside they are quickly obtained by the locals who use the cans themselves for making cups, crafts which can be sold. So I guess it’s like a recycling system on a different level.

Wine bottled are not returnable to anywhere- hence are extravagantly more expensive (as if you actually bought the beer bottle it would also be more expensive than the can) Even at the cheapest vender of fermented grapes the lowest priced wines I’ve found are in the high 300’s (+$4) [Two buck Chuck doesn’t exist here sad face]

Kegs are very rare, and I’ve only found two locations out of ten to serve draft beer, they are always “higher class” venues and usually serve Westerners or Indians (I’ve been informed there are a few others, but not many). One such location served bottled tusker for 140ksh and draft tusker for 130ksh. I have yet to explore more into the expenses of a keg, but this seemed very odd to me. You definitely have to put a deposit down on the keg, and I would love to assume the price per quantity is less than say if you bough bought a single beer, but: buying tusker in larger quantities (say a six pack, or a crate) does nothing to diminish the price. There are no real advantages to buying higher quantities of beer at a single time – it just cost the same. This would be a great opportunity for anybody interested in consulting EAB. (I wonder if this has to do with their near monopoly status)

A new competitor of EAB, which is in the process of promoting itself, is Sierra beer- it produces only cans of Amber and Blond at 85ksh a pop. It’s good beer with a thicker and fuller taste than Tusker, and more importantly; an alternative taste that allows me to compare different beers. I believe EAB realizes the in-coming competitor since is recently rebranded it’s Pilsner brand to try and capture what’s left of the market: (making the square logo round, increasing the font size, and flipping the logo (a red lion) to the left instead of the right) it was a good rebranding party with plenty of free beer, loud music, and good food, but I had to double take at the three meter bottle with the new logo to make sure that it was different, I got the feeling that the plethora of college student attending the event could care less what the bottle looked like.

This brings me to an observation on Kenyan culture on food and possibly attitude on change.

The food here as described by Lonely Planet Kenya (which almost every foreigner has) is:” focused on feeding lots of people and quickly with little emphasis on taste.”

With this in mind I ask do Kenyans really care if everywhere you go the beer is the same? The ugali is the same, the chicken doesn’t have much variation, and one chama joint isn’t very different from the next except for the levels of the meats toughness.

I recently spoke with a consumer trends analysis about this subject to shed more light on the subject. He described the typical Kenyan as a person who is satisfied with consistency. Finding one service, one product that they enjoy, and they will have it for the rest of their lives. This being said 65% of Kenya lives below the poverty line. So the “typical” Kenyan lives as cheaply as possible. The room for growth as he described is in the emerging middle class, which has tasted the fruits of western culture, and enjoys verity. The middle class is what funds the alternative choices, such as Sierra Beer.

With new competitors emerging, and a weak effort at creating a new image for a beer that the company is trying to modernize, Easter African Brewery is doing a poor job at keeping up with a growing, more flavorful, market. To bad they control most of it.

This is not over, I've decided to look into it more :)

Note: EAB has two other major brands of beer which I did not mention; Tusker Malt which is found almost everywhere Tusker is and does actually have a very distinctive taste, and Senator beer which I have yet to taste and have never found in a super market- apparently it is aimed at the other 65% of the population and is dirt cheep but only comes in a keg (this is just what I’ve heard), and is meant to be drunk warm.


*high is used to refer to any sort of intoxication, equivalent to “drunk,” “wasted,” or “hammered”… there are many more, but the word “stoned” is directly related to marijuana and I am unsure what the state glue sniffing would be referred to.

Location: Longonot National Park, Kenya

We met outside the Hilton at 7:45 as planned, and left at a little past 8 to search out a Matatu to take us to Naivasha, the closest town of size to Mount Longonot, a 2777m volcano in the midst of the Rift Valley which runs through central Kenya.


Our trip to Naivasha took approximately 1.5 hours from down town Nairobi, upon which we passed an over look of Longonot and a view into the crater of the dormant volcano.

When in Naivasha, we found another Matatu to take us to the village of Longonot.
30 minuets later, after passing through the tow, we found ourselves on the side of a well constructed (a rarity in this area) road, in sight of the mountain, but with no obvious direction to a gate, or path to our destination.

Laughing, we trudged over to a group of construction workers, and asked for directions to the mountain that was obviously in front of us. Guiding us onto a a nearby road, we thanked them, and walked 2-3 km from where the matatu dropped us off on a sandy road, passing farms and smiling children who persistently called after us “How are you?” to our destination.

At the gate, we had to convince the guard that three of us were residents and not tourists (it’s implied if you speak Kiswahili that you’re a native, and three of us didn’t). The tourist fee is 2,000 ksh, the equivalent to about $30 USD- way more than we wanted to pay for a day hike. With this knowledge we brought our work agreement papers, stating that we were staying over six months to work, and thus would qualify for a residents notice (or the equivalent) and should not be charged the 2,000 ksh for each of us foreigners (Dunia, Florent, and Sean [myself]). After much talk in Kiswahili between Michelle and the guard at the gate, non of which I understood, it was agreed that all three of us would pay 2,000 ksh combined. Kenyan natives pay nothing (after all they pay taxes). We seven proceeded into the park.

From the base of Longonot, you cannot see the peak, it simply looks like a rounded off mount much like Kilimanjaro and over shield volcanoes. The summit itself is 1000m off the floor of the rift valley, but the edge of the rim of the crater, which is 2km wide varies from 700m up to the peak, a sizable difference when you first approach and cannot fathom what you are actually hiking.

On the way up we encountered no one except the exceptionally thorny trees in the area. The thorns on the flora are not the small prickles I find back home (which are still very painful, though not nearly as violent as when I encountered here) but huge picks, which if given the opportunity could run themselves through your hand. I do not believe them poisoness, but these suckers hurt, and you have to be really careful to avoid them.

On of the reasons we left at 8 am to reach Longonot was the rains that have been occurring later in the afternoon for the past week. We wanted to be off them mountain by about four. As we began hiking, this seemed a better and better idea, as the path we were hiking was very dry. Dust covered our clothing and belongings; making we seven look like a ragtag bunch. The tail itself was not exceptionally easy, in many areas there were 30-40 degree slopes, with a terrain I can only compare to drainage ditches and caves; steep shallow cannons’ of about 1-1.5 meters with foot holds carved out and collapsed areas with roots growing in.

We quickly divided into two groups: Florent, Dunia, Kirt, and Sean in one, Wanja, Michelle, and Estel in the other. We met us occasionally, at the fist plateau about ¼ the way to the peak, and on short stops on the way, but overall we were not together.

After the fist plateau, there is a steep incline to the rim of the crater, which overlooks the 2km wide forest inside of Longonot, walled off from the rest of the valley by the steep walls on the outside, and ever steeper cliffs on the inside of the crater. The floor is flat, though and covered with a lush forest, and what appeared to be small lakes. The peak is visible across the crater, and obviously towers over the rest of the rim, looking to be a generally steep incline. There are pick neck tables, and a few people were resting on the way around the crater. The group in front stopped for a sack at the rim, and ate fruitcake, cucumbers, muffins, and glucose. Preceded around the north side for the crater, which is slightly steeper, but the shorter path to the peak, made up of several shorter peaks that we managed as best we could (some have side paths).

We made it to the rim in about an hour, and then to the peak in about two. From the peak Mount Susa (2357m), Mount Leastima (4001m), the Ngong hills, and the area around Lake Naivasha are all visible. After a twenty-minuet rest, we continued our trek around the crater. The remaining side is much less steep, though longer, and was much more accommodating to the knees.

The decent down the rim was steep and quick, probably not taking more than half and hour at most. We ( the group which went ahead) met up with the others at the gate, where we drank coke, and relaxed until we decided it was time to leave.

Walking back, we realized we were going to pass the town on the road we were on and needed to veer through farms for a more direct route. A local guided us through, and lead us to town where we could get a Matatu. On the way I took this picture of garbage in the sun:

Trash like this is all over town, and not just this one, and no one really seems to care.

Three Mazungus (white people) and four Kenyan girls then tried to catch any form of transportation away from the town of Longonot. We had offers from truckers who wanted to sit next to a white girl, and stoned Landrover drivers toy with us for half and hour, and plenty of passerby’s. In the end we managed to catch a Matatu, and overload it to about 26 people (they’re made for 14). I personally had two eight year olds on my lap, and the conductor was worried about my breathing.

The Matatu’s we got on could only take us to Mahi Mahi (I have no clue how it’s spelt, but listening to my Dutch friend Florent say it made everybody in the Matatu laugh.) From there we transferred into another Matatu that would take us to Nairobi.

In this Matatu we had to hide out money in our shoes, because the Kenyans I was with were worried about being mugged by the suspicious people in the front of the van.
Luckily nothing happened, until later.

We all arrived back in Nairobi tired and worn out, but went our separate ways home with promises to call each other. I took a bus to Kilimani where I stay, and greeted the guards at my gate as I always did with a short lesson in Kiswahili, then texted Dunia, telling her I hadn’t gotten mugged, and arrived home safely.

I then went ot my room exhausted and called my parents. As I was on the phone with my father, I received a text, that Dunia:

“Shanky there was this man with poop and a knife and uggggh… are you ok?!”

I was confused, I didn’t see a man with poop or a knife all day, but apparently she had, and was asking me if I was all right. I hadn’t seen her in about half and hour, but to be honest I wasn’t all the worried as she still had a phone, and was able to text me. The last time I was mugged, I had neither a) a phone b) my consciousness c) the ability to be concerned about other people… or even me for that matter.

That message was later followed by:

“yea, so technically we were mugged. Glad I got that out of the way, shit.”

“We” was Dunia and Kirt, who had agreed to walk Dunia to her Matatu stop. I later found out that Dunia only found out they were mugged after the who incident happened. Kirt (who speaks Kiswahili- the language the whole conversation with the poop wielding knife possessor was spoken in) told me both her and Dunia were in an area which they should not have been in late at night waiting for Dunia’s Matatu. A man who stated “I usually stab people with needles and smear shit on them, but I’m being nice I want 100 ksh from you” approached them! Kirt said, “I don’t have any money,” mind you Dunia has no clue what’s going on, and I don’t think saw what was in his hands. He keeps on demaning money, and Dunia, getting some kind of clue figures he wants money to take them to a Mataut, so she pulls out a 1000 ksh note, after kirt askes for 100 ksh. She then askes if he has change. Mr. Poopy gives them back change. Then Kisses Dunia’s hand. Then leaves.

Dunia goes home with kirt.

The End.

Where are you now, and how are you impacting it?