Quicksilver is Fast

***WARNING***Prepare to get nerdy!

Quicksilver from the recent "X-men: Days of Future Past" movie is fast.  REALLY fast.  So fast that I suspected that he was much faster than the comics had ever claimed he could be.  I did the maths.

Based on the awesome kitchen scene where he just wins in under a second by running on walls, gently tapping guards all while casually tasting food and stealing a hat, not only is Quicksilver fast, he's WAY faster than the comics ever dreamed he'd be.  Let's break it down.

The kitchen was a round room, and judging by the bodies laying on the floor and a rough estimate I would say it has at least a 20 ft radius from the first shooter in the middle to our heroes at the edge.

Depending on the grain, .45 ACP bullets travel around 600mph or 880ft/s.  It would take 0.0227s for the bullet to travel 20ft.  Bullets are pretty swift.  This is far too short a time to enjoy, so what would normally be far less than a blink of the eye is slowed down 5000 times.  The slow motion started from the bulletfire and lasted 113s(4972 times longer than .0227s) until the bullet reached our heroes at the outer edge.  So everything that Quicksilver does at movie slowmo speed can be multiplied by 5000 to get the real time speed.

Quicksilver immediately takes a full lap around the room (2*20ft *pi = 125.6ft circumference) in 37s of slowed movie time.  This works out to be 17000ft/s(3.4f/s*5000) or 11,590mph.  This turns out to be his casual jogging speed since after he's finished fooling around with the guards, he's at the far end of the room and finally notices the bullets heading toward his pals.

He makes a super fast half circle run in 1 second of movie time.  If we estimate he's 5 feet from the wall at both his start and end that cuts the radius down to 15ft and his run is only 47.1ft(15*pi) to get to the bullets nearing the professor and magneto's faces.  This is much faster.  47.1ft/s * 5000 = a real time speed of 235,000 ft/s or 160,227 mph.  This is around a curve too.  Who knows what he could do if he was going straight and really trying or trained or wasn't a slacker.

There are a couple of issues that a speed of over mach 200 brings up.
1.  The comics max Quicksilver's speed at mach 10.  While Mach 10 is very fast, it's certainly not Mach 200.  Movie Quicksilver can run circles around asteroids and comets and therefore do anything he wants on earth, including solving ALL the problems of the movie and being nigh impossible to stop with the relatively sluggish Sentinels.  Of course, the scene was so cool that no one really cares about the comics, and having more of him just ruins the drama of the Sentinels actually being a challenge, or having a problem stopping Mystique or w/e.

2.  Flash is supposedly clocked at the speed of light.  While 160227miles per hour is insanely fast, it's not even 1/60th the speed of light.  That's right, the Flash is supposedly more than 60 times faster than even the incredible, overclocked, movie version of Quicksilver.  Why is this an issue?  It means that in comparison, Quicksilver is riding a tricycle while the Flash is in a Bugatti and therefore DC is terrible at making movies that aren't Batman when handed to visionary directors like Nolan.  What the hell has DC been doing with itself this whole time?  All everyone could talk about after seeing "Days of Future Past" was why there wasn't more Quicksilver, and DC has been sitting on a superhero mindblastingly faster and more powerful.  I know there's a new flash tv show , but people are excited about him running 700mph when he's first clocked.  I guess he's really challenged by a guy that makes cyclones, because...I don't care.

I really just wanted to confirm a hunch I had that the movie version of Quicksilver was way faster than he's ever been, and as it turns out, yup.

Bullseye!

This tiny fluttering speck was our first sign of the newest baby Lim. The rhythmic beating, much like the strong heartbeat of only the greatest champions of ages past, not only confirmed our hopes, it assuaged our fear of ectopic pregnancy or possible complications. After many concerns, this was a most welcomed sight.

One day we'll look back and remember fondly this time before our child was such a huge disappointment. Seriously though, it amazes me how such a tiny speck can be the target of such a flood of love, joy, and crushing burden. There's nothing like the most important thing in your life simultaneously being the most fragile to bring a man to eager prayer for the best. -M

Bearshoctobat

The lord of terror now reigns over the land, sea and air.

My Africa Trip - 10

6/12/11

At the Nairobi International Airport now. I got here about 4 hours early. I do have an explanation.

On the 9th, the day were to fly to Malindi on the coast, we were busy packing and cramming in as much sightseeing as we could. Katie, as usual, is in a panic about time. We were taking too long getting on the second bus downtown. The plane tickets were taking too long and they were super sketchy because they were printed by a dot matrix printer from the 60s. They essentially said, "This is your ticket to Malindi"and have a bunch of coded letters and numbers we prayed meant aerial transport to silver beaches. The travel agency traded hotels on us last minute and that was taking forever to rebook. We finally got out of there and barely had *gasp* around 9 hours to kill.

We checked out the nice mall they have and finally found where Kenya hides all the white people. Just pump A/C into a well painted building, charge the equivalent of $100 for a bit of fabric labelled "bathing suit", and the crackers come a running.

There are many funny things about this place. Not least of which is the frequency of attempts I see to take advantage of whitish foreigners, their abundance of money and their lack of patience for haggling. Water is 3 times the regular cost in the American style "fast food" place. Crappy hand made duplicates are 8 times what they're willing to let them go for. Two stores in the same mall have near identical bathing suits for a modest price difference of $95. This is the same place where street vendors(if you can find them) are selling luxury foods like 4 delicious tomatoes for $0.10, onions for the same, fresh cilantro bundles for $0.20 and giant hunks of the sweetest pineapple I've ever had, including Hawaii, for less than that.

We got a few things for Malindi at this mall. Luckily we found the discounted prices. We walked outside because Katie had seen some masks she was interested in on the taxi drive there. The first shop we went to immediately bombarded us. "Come inside! Looking is free!" If we showed the smallest modicum of interest in anything not there they sent a runner to get it from some other store. We had to say "no" to literally everything they had in the store before they'd get out of the way. I wanted to buy nothing just to teach them about the power of the soft sell. This wasn't hard selling. It was more like border-line rape-selling.

I wanted a pipe, and Katie wanted some paintings. They were incredibly generic formula paintings but Katie liked them so we got them. They quoted the price of the "Ebony" pipe at 8000/= or $96. Apparently this kind of retardation has worked before on some rich guy's dumb wife or someone who literally burns money for fun. After trying to pull Katie out of there grumbling about not being taken seriously, blah blah blah, I got the pipe for 1500/=(about $18) and she got three $12 paintings. I justified it because I can be the douche that smokes a pipe and tells people "I bought this pipe on one of my travels in Kenya" and I do seriously want to support commerce in Kenya. I hear hopes for the new constitution being implemented there next August, but the corruption in government certainly doesn't seem to be changing quickly enough. More on that later.

(Back to NBO Nairobi International Airport)

Nothing on this trip has been simple or straight forward. I'm currently waiting for my gate # to be posted on the board. It's 15 minutes before my plane is supposed to start boarding and check in is supposed to already be locked. This will only be an easier departure than our Malindi trip if the plane actually leaves to Brussels with me on it. I still can't find a Brussels representative, and everyone else assures me that a gate number will be posted.

Before heading to Malindi, we calculated plenty of time to see the museum and snake park. The sign said a super cheap 100-200/= depending on how much you wanted to see of the exhibits. Oh wait, for non-residents it's 1200/= per person. $15, ok, whatever, it was cool. Really cool art gallery. We probably would have bought one of the paintings if we weren't worried about the delivery. The stuffed birds were creepy, but really interesting to see just how big they are up close. The Kenyan history was interesting as was the snake park. I shot a few videos.

Afterward we jumped a cab back to downtown (they just called it 'town') and grabbed a bus back to our place to get our luggage for Malindi. All according to plan. We had ages of time left. After about 30 minutes of watching bus after full bus pass our stop on the way to the airport and the closest cab we could phone was a 30 minute traffic jam away we started hitting Katie's delicate panic button.

I asked a minibus (14 or so person Nissan barely larger than a minivan they call 'Nee-san') if he could take us to the airport. He said they're not allowed at the airport, only cabs and full buses could go per the local laws. I asked him how close he could get us and for how much. He said 50/= to the roundabout near the airport, then we could jump a 20/= bus the rest of the way. The big question was if we'd have better luck getting a bus at the roundabout than here. This fine, upstanding, stained-toothed man in a dirt-painted nissan seemed to think it would be fine. No problem. Adventure time!

We jumped in and waited there for the nissan to fill up with other sweaty people going the same way. Only a few minutes in and we hit a dead stop; a 40 minute dead stop.

Katie starts whispering 'Ye su neguju, Yesu neguju'. It's a Korean chant they taught at REM meaning, "Jesus is my savior." They taught it as a statement of power and faith, and as a simple prayer in times of trouble. When they chanted this in REM, the Korean women usually started rocking back and forth and screamed this phrase over and over. When we returned to Nairobi we'd hear it for about an hour straight at a time echoing from the small chapel near our flat. When I first experienced this chanting, it immediately made me think of what Jesus said in Matthew 6:7,

"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

It was strange and rubbed me the wrong way, but I had to admit that it really worked for getting the blood going and giving you the chills of a cathartic, then euphoric religious experience. I theorize this and emotional comfort, combined with the 'holy status' was the big draw for some.

People on motorbikes and on foot were passing us in the dirt side of the road. Sitting on the front seat over the hot transmission and under my luggage wasn't helping my anxious stink. The driver noticed my impatience and asked if I was in a hurry. "Little bit", I was thinking of walking. He pointed out the departing airplanes climbing into the sky still several slow kilometers away. Walking was out.

He suggested I hire him personally and then he could take us to the airport. I asked him how much and he quoted me 1500/=. The same price the travel agency said was the legal maximum taxis could charge. We still had a little time left, and my Korean side for some reason must haggle. I mumbled it was too much and mentioned 1000/=. He dropped to 1300/= after mentioning having to pay to get in and out of the airport didn't phase me. I continued to stall as we neared the last round about.

Traffic was still crawling desperately slow. The choice was search for, hope for, pray for a bus/taxi to take us the rest of the way or pay this guy and guarantee our trip to the airport. "Ok, deal." Commitment is usually when the real fun starts.

By this time there were only a couple of others left in the minibus. They both seemed to be working with the driver. One was definitely the conductor all the 'Nissans' have. They hang out the side, shouting where they're going, how much they cost, and bang on the side of the minibus to signal the driver to stop or go.

Around this time the driver starts his bit about how corrupt the cops are and how they pick on the Nissans. From what I gathered from the pieces of word fragments I could understand, Nissans have strict local laws they have to follow. They have certain numbers they display when they are performing a public transportation role, and they have to flip that number around to display 'private' if they are acting in a taxi's role. If the cops catch them breaking any rules they extort money out of them.

As if on cue, up ahead in the sluggish traffic was a cop shouting and gesticulating at various cars. I thought he was a traffic cop, but when we finally got to him he looked pissed and obviously recognized the conductor. There was a few seconds that felt like minutes where they jabbered in what sounded like Swahili. I just stared at the floor. I wanted nothing to do with the inside of a Kenyan prison because I didn't have enough bribe money. Don't make eye contact. The cop then started screaming and banging on the door of the bus. I quietly started rocking and whispering "Jesu Neguju" in my head.

The door slid open and he yanked the conductor out of the minibus by his collar and pulled him across the road somewhere. The other guy got out as well I believe. The driver discreetly flipped the number card hanging from the windshield from 33 to "Private". I never did get clear on whether doing that earlier would have saved the conductor. The driver said the cop wanted 1000/= ($12) and the conductor didn't have it so he was going away for 6 months. He also mentioned that the cops knew them all and constantly ate into their income.

As we crawled around the roundabout the minibus' gas light went on. The driver asks me if I'm ok to get gas. I'm looking at the gridlock and wondering what choice I have when he starts going around again and proves just how very little. He continues to rail against the corruption and the heavy hand of the law as he almost hits a traffic cop trying to deal with this madness. Then he proceeds to go off-roading on the side of the street to speed past the traffic, then swerves a 90 degree turn back onto the car packed road, cutting across 3 lanes of multidirectional traffic. All this was well within viewable distance of the several traffic cops around, not to mention Death's hungry gaze, but the speed, air, and freedom were actually rather fun.

A couple of litres dropped in the tank by a station attendant and that was the fastest part of the trip.

A quick word about driving in Kenya. These guys are crazy. Even though there may be 80% of San Diego taxi drivers from this part of the world, the ones back home are driving Miss Daisy by comparison. They drive so unbelievably close to each other on roads with no dividing lines. This includes when they pass each other when most roads can only physically fit 3 car widths with inches of space in between. Maybe I should say centimeters, but they cut each other off and even play chicken with the smallest of spaces.

Horn honking is the more polite communication choice for warnings of impending passing, a friendly hello, or signalling a general disapproval. The stronger reprimand is a reach out the window and physically beat the other car with their hand while yelling something a shaman might scream while slaughtering a goat and cursing someone's children's children. The most polite one I could understand was a long hand held out in the international sign for 'halt' and with a James Earl Jones-like booming voice shouted, "You are SO WRONG!" then a 5 minute tirade about crazy drivers in Kenya.

Although I've never seen so many 18 wheelers flipped on the side of the road in the combined total of all my years of life, I was very surprised there weren't more accidents.

We finally reached the airport and as usual I was wrong to hope for fewer problems. So we pull up to the security gate into the airport and another cop with the familiar yellow jacket and a giant AK-47 style rifle steps in front of the vehicle. The driver looks visibly concerned. The cop circles the vehicle and is obviously looking for an excuse. I doubt he even finds anything. I doubt it matters.

A quick word on corruption. Crooked cops should be shot. I'm not being facetious. That's not hyperbole. They should be publicly stripped of their badge and gun, have all their tyrannical crimes against the people as well as their crimes against a sacred position of trust and power over the common man read aloud. Then they should be shot knowing their family name will be shamed and their children shunned.

Every time a politician, cop, or anyone in a governmentally backed position of power considers a bribe, or abuse of their power, they should think about getting shot and their family stripped of all their wealth.

Police extortion and government corruption is like a child getting raped by a parent. You're getting fucked by those who are supposed to protect you and there's no one else to turn to.

The driver made mention that due to population increase and government funds they were having trouble staffing enough police and were hiring people that couldn't even read or write. He then continued to bitch about how when he left the airport that second cop was going to want a cut and asked if I could just give him the 1500/=.

Whether he was telling the truth or the entire thing was an elaborate ploy they play on foreigners to get a couple more dollars out of an hour and 40 minute trip, the evidence all pointed inarguably to one conclusion.

This place is a shithole.

If the cops are crooked? Shithole.

If they think a 5 man team and an elaborate trick to get $2 more out of me is a good deal for them? Shithole.

I happily exited the death trap and gave him the $18. He was super stoked and offered to drive us when we got back.

Now that I'm finally on the plane to Brussels, this time was a dream in comparison. The fact that they never put up a gate number for my flight, the fact that it was 30 minutes late, and the fact that had I not by chance heard word of mouth where my plane was I would have missed the flight all added up to wishing I drank more than two beers. I rather enjoy the Tusker Malt served ubiquitously in Kenya, but they were not nearly enough inebriation to relax me into enjoying the 6 lines I had to wait in. There was a line just to get into the airport, get through security before check in, get checked in, get through immigration, get to pre-boarding, get through Brussel's own security, wait in a waiting room because there was a line of planes for the limited gates, then finally the wait to get on the plane and sit.

I must say I'm really impressed with how much of a better airline Brussels Airlines is to American ones. Seriously. Headphones? Included. Meals? Included. Luggage? Included. Free Beer? Included. This was the same with Kenyan Air.

Malindi was pretty close to a dream. Minus the mosquitoes and the human blood suckers, I wish we were still there. From the extremely numerous Italian villas there, many mafia crime lords feel the same way. There were some of the largest, white pillared mansions I've seen right on the beach. Locals always said they were Italians looking to hide their money.

We went during down season so we pretty much had the hotel Eden Roc to ourselves. Top notch hospitality, cheap drinks, giant pool, beach access, and it was walking distance to our favorite ice cream shop. It was like renting a mansion on the beach with a bunch of super friendly servants for $66/night.

We walked around the little town with the plan to see the Marine Park. Somehow when we were looking for an ATM, this guy, Omar, smelled fresh blood and took it upon himself to be our tour guide/snorkel supplier/best friend. He followed us around like a creepy homeless dude, and didn't really look much different. He quoted us ridiculous prices for "Tuktuks", the three wheeled taxi cars they have here and claimed he couldn't quote snorkels prices until we got to the park.

I was about to tell him to get lost after going to the ATM, but he got us a "Tuktuk" for 150/= to the Marine Park. I didn't realize this meant he and his college were going to tag along. Katie is of course telling me how she's scared in Korean. Neither of them are paying for the tuktuk ride. I hate these people right now.

Apparently it's against local law to have more than 3 passengers in these tiny motorbike-jeep hybrids and the college jumps off before a check point. We pass the check point then the driver pulls to the side of the road to wait for the guy to cross on foot. Annoyed, I asked what we were waiting for. Like I'm retarded, they explain again about the local law and how they're waiting for the asshat to catch up on foot. Like they're retarded, I ask the driver if he was paying to tag along. The driver says 'no', and gets the hint. We bail.

When we get to the park, there's a big fight about price and Katie and I nearly left. There happened to be some other tourists there who said it was well worth it so I relented when they finally agreed to my price. Haggling is annoying. I swear I could run that town with a no fuss, reasonably priced all inclusive package for tourists that don't want their relaxing vacations ruined by creepy, toothless guys trying to break their wallets. See all the sites, don't get hassled by swindlers, don't have a romantic time ruined by jerks who can't take a hint. I made sure to tip generously every soft sell guy I met. Hard sellers always get zero tip.

As it turns out the park was quite over priced, including the foreigner mark up, but I'm still glad we did it. It was a lot of fun. It was essentially just a nice beach with a bunch of barely floating boats. We hopped into one and road out with another couple from Nairobi and two crew men.

The boat had one of the glass bottoms but there wasn't much visible there. The real attraction was feeding the swarms of fish. There were tons of them. They went crazy for bread. It was a pretty strange feeling being surrounded by so many swarming fish but they were friendly enough. I only got bit once, but was an accident the way I was pinching the bread. It didn't hurt at all and he apologized profusely. So we're cool.

Snorkeling was alright. I mildly wish I brought my own gear, but it was functional enough to see a giant octopus wrapped around a rock. It had suckers the size of 50 cent pieces. I have a healthy caution around animals I've seen attack and eat sharks so I kept my distance.

Katie started getting seasick. I tried distracting her by jumping off the roof of the boat together and back-flipping into the water. She said it helped a little but ended up with her eyes glued to the horizon all the way back to shore. I could barely get her to look at land when it was time to get off the boat.

There was a kite surfing guy there too who gave us a little demo on how to run into boats. I probably would have paid to try it but he said the wind was pretty weak. Apparently Europeans will pay 350euros for lessons.

We went to the ice cream place afterwards. It was hot and we had been walking so this was especially amazing. The rest of the day was drinks by the pool over looking the ocean. The weather was warm, the breeze cool, and somehow the epecially large puffy clouds rolling by were so much bigger and clearer in this unpolluted land. We took in a nice shrimp and steak meal for dinner and decided to watch the sunrise over the ocean the next morning.

This was when I was planning to propose so I of course woke up around 4am wide awake and a bit nervous. I prayed for an obvious sign if I was making a big mistake, and then for some reason felt compelled to formulate easy shortcuts for multiplying 2 digit numbers together for an hour and a half.

I discovered that if the first digits are the same and the second digits add up to 10, there's a really easy way to multiply them. For example, 83 x 87 = 7221. Just multiply the first number(8) by one number higher (9) for the first digits (72), then multiply the second digits(3x7) for the last (21). 25x25 = 625, 51x59 = 3009, so on and so forth. If you're a giant nerd like me and care why that works, ask me and I'll explain it. I started some slightly more complicated 3 digit stuff too, but I'll not bore you any longer with that.

So we bundled up, sprayed on repellent and smeared on sunscreen. We opened the door to pouring rain.

Oh my God. Really?

We still had some time before sunrise, so we decided to go down and see what we could see. Miracles. The clouds parted by the time we walked a flight of steps and 100 meters through the hotel to the ocean side. Not a drop of rain hit us. We walked the palm tree girded path to the beach drinking in the stillness of everything at that hour. Even the night guard, noiseless came forth from the shadows like a ninja to let us know he was there with a nod. The need for the guard still baffles me. They almost crapped their pants the other night when I suggested a night walk on the beach to Katie. They were super scared of murder/rape or something. They would never admit there was any danger, but they didn't act like it. They almost fell over themselves to get another guard that could accompany us.

We found a nice hill and huddled together and watched the titanic floating mountains grow brighter and brighter halos. It was gorgeous, but it looked like the horizon was too clouded to see the sun. The receptionist earlier had mentioned that clouds often obscured the sunrise when we asked what time it would be.

Come on...clouds and rain? Really? I wanted everything to be perfect, but it didn't look like we were going to get a sunrise. At the time I thought, screw superstitious weather and I just went ahead and proposed. She's the one I want to be with rain or shine and I wasn't going to back out now.

Almost immediately after I asked her to marry me and I put the perfect fitting, diamond ring on her finger, the sun exploded over the horizon. We hadn't missed it. It was merely waiting for us.

She didn't seem all that surprised by the proposal. I know she's been waiting for that for a long time and it certainly means the world to me that she's been so patient with me.

For the rest of the day we were super lazy and it was bliss. It was a wonderful ending to an otherwise dreadful trip and I wish I didn't have to leave Kenya without her.

Epilogue:

On the way back home, I started to get severe stomach pains, nausea and couldn't stop evacuating my bowels as sizable liquid deposits. I had around 30-40 mosquito bites, many of which were from the higher malaria risk area of Malindi, so I figure it may be due to that. I ended up not eating for about 3 days, but some how had enough in me to choke the toilet 20 or so times a day. The last few times as my stomach started feeling better was pretty much just peeing from my butt. Africa had one last gift to leave me with and showed me there was literally nothing in that country that didn't come with a significant price.

I've been sleeping a couple hours a day, then staying up all night trying to sleep some more since I got back. I finally found that melatonin and wine work rather nicely. I got a solid 4 hours last night.

There's still plenty to do. Katie is working with some of the friends we made in Africa to organize chair, possibly desks, books, and more food for the children of Lordwar, Lokichar, as well as many of the orphaned kids in the Nairobi slums. We talk every day on google voice for $.24/min, because screw At&t, that's why. No. I miss her dearly and even after all the trouble, frustration, lies, and problems, I still wish I was back there with her. I still wish I can one day go back to Turkana and do something lasting for those wonderful people.

My Africa Trip - 9

6/8/11 7AM

Katie woke me up whining about mosquitoes. There were about 10 of them in our useless net and I feel sick from all the useless repellent that's been sprayed, fumigated, and burned in this enclosed room. The fumigation can we got you spray into the air, close all the windows and doors and let it work for 5-10 minutes. We've killed dozens of mosquitoes this way, but it's so toxic you want to open the windows afterward, completely negating the work. The spray seems to work, but only precisely on the sprayed areas. I thought I got everything, but it turns out I missed my rear end because I woke up with around 10 bites on my sweet pork ass. The burning the coil only seems to work outside for locals, because it certainly wasn't working for us.

We're finally back in Nairobi so instead of the usual 4am begrudging wake-up call, it was 2am. I've been up since then catching up on the events of the past days.

Many things have happened since returning to the wonderfully cooler Nairobi air, but one in particular was a problem transporting the food in Lokichar. Late that last night in Lordwar, I got a call from Rael saying something about needing money to transport the food from the storage to the school. It was a terrible connection and was ended quickly.

Over the next few days I tried repeatedly to text and coordinate with Bishop Manje to see if he could figure things out. I thought it made sense seeing as he could speak Swahili and I was a 20 hour bus ride away in Nairobi.

More fun as Katie lost her cellphone yesterday due to a curious string of events. It started with her falling in an open sewer hole, getting non-shit covered pants from a friend of Sarah's, finding the hole in one pocket but then not the other one until we realized that the cellphone was gone.

Yes. She fell into an open sewer hole in downtown Nairobi, in the middle of a crowded street full of vehicles, and nearly broke her shin. All over this lovely city are open rectangular holes about 2ft by 1.5ft that drop down a few feet to sewage. They're lined with metal for extra stability. Everyone else stepped over it. I even had the fleeting thought that someone's body, like mine for example, might hide this hole for someone else walking behind. Katie was busy looking up at the tall buildings for the bank we needed to visit and like a cartoon, fell in this open maw of waste.

She never cries and she gets hurt (usually self inflicted accidents) all the time. I heard a yelp, and turned to see her 3 feet shorter, head down, and choking back sniffles. I thought she broke something, and carried her around the middle divider and through traffic to a place on the sidewalk where she could sit. It turns out she instantly got a double tap bruise on her shin and her other foot was covered in what looked like digested baby food and animal waste. She smelled horrible, and my empathy for her embarrassment barely contained the hilarity for me. We took a quick trip across the street and bought her some new shoes and socks. Luckily Sarah knows a million people here so a nearby friend let Katie use her shower and borrow a clean pair of pants.

We eventually got to the original destination of a Chinese restaurant (of course run by Koreans) and I thought the food was a welcome reminder of home, although the Africans seemed to be politely restraining themselves.

As it turns out, these clean pair of pants were the ones with the holes in them and now we have none of our contacts and no word on what happened in Lokichar. We currently have no idea if all the hard work to get the food to them was for naught or not.

When I emailed my family to let them know I was fine, but how crappy everything was going, I was told to suck it up. Big help family, thanks!

8:30PM

Nairobi is a wild and interesting city, but feels like home in comparison to the desert heat. I'm enjoying it much better, but something about the people is missing. It still pains me that we weren't able to go with Sarah on one of her regular missions to Lokichar, without REM taking up the whole time.

The Turkana people's warmth and kindness is so different and refreshing. One of Katie's table members just called her to say she was with her family and they hoped we had a good night.

Katie got her hair braided for 4 hours, while Raph showed me around town a little. When Katie was done we took a bus back to downtown and booked a flight and hotel for Malindi on the coast. With Sophia already lying to everyone about Katie being my fiancé, I hope it doesn't spoil things.

I'm starting to get the hang of the bus system. I'm confident about getting to town and back home again. Tomorrow we'll see how much Nairobi sight seeing we can fit in. I've seen so much of Africa through the dozens of discovery channel shows, DVDs, and now real life that I don't feel especially compelled to see more animals in the desert. I think the zoo will be fine, maybe some shopping, then off to the coast and romance!

My Africa Trip - 8

Chronicles of 6/4/11

The towel defense has failed me. Like clockwork the unyielding horde of maggot-assed crawler wasps attacked at 4am. I jumped as the distinctive tickle of their prickly legs on my back matched the buzzing sound of their ineffectual wings. What the hell do they want?

Luckily I caught most of them still struggling through the towel. Dozens more died by my frantic foot stomping and yet they continued to breach forth out of the dark cracks. I know they saw many of their best friends get crushed and smeared across the ground. I'm sure they could hear the ultra sonic cries for help, but yet they continued forward into my righteous slaughter.

I finally plugged enough holes to buy enough time to grab a bucket of soapy water from the bathroom and pour it over the towel. This created a suffocating wall that finally stemmed the insect tide.

Later, when we left, outside the door, there was a whole line of them still waiting to get in. So creepy.

Sometime during breakfast, (I didn't eat) I found out my step-mom Sophia told Sarah not to tell us a REM meeting was going on during the time we were out here so that we would feel obligated to go in return for Sarah's help. I absolutely hate backing out of my commitments, but I nearly quit REM right then and there.

On the bus trip from the place we were staying to the church, I was trying to at least get clarity through Katie's Korean translation. The confusion was thick, and I was so over it.

At the very least I would be able to handle getting some food during lunch break. I could get some for the Lordwar kids at the church school where the REM was being held, but there was a huge resistance to the idea of simply dropping off food for the even poorer kids in Lokichar. Essentially it was okay to expect me to waste my entire time in Turkana helping them, listening to the director's snide sarcasm about my idea to help w/ water wells for people having trouble getting enough water. Hoping they could spare the smallest of time at a place that was literally on the way back to Nairobi for the kids of the very same people they were trying to preach about how wonderful Jesus is was too much to expect. This was after I had been told several times that there would be 'plenty of time' to do exactly what I was asking about.

My immediate family recently sent me several high and enlightened messages about spiritual growth and 'no expectations', but Jesus didn't suffer lies and hypocrisy this much.

I was done. If they couldn't spare the smallest of time to just stay out of my way, then I was not going to finish the REM. The excuse was that the student missionaries that were with us needed to get back to school on Monday, and we couldn't spare any time for these kids.

I think some of them heard me because they broke into loud shout prayers and speaking in tongues (or Korean, I couldn't tell).

I swear that so often many Koreans' love of status annoys me to no end. They care more about the appearance of riches than actually being rich, more about the appearance of generosity than actual generosity, and the appearance of piety than actual piety.

Sarah, I have a huge amount of respect for. She came out here by herself when her church wouldn't support her. Only when she showed the good things she was doing to help people did they send their support in the form of these formulaic REM meetings. Oh how I wish I had come during a time when there was no REM meeting here to waste my time and work for these kids.

The director of this REM meeting rubbed me the wrong way in so many different aspects. She MUST be called "Director". Fine. She MUST have the loudest mic regardless of her tendency to avoid being on key. Okay. She must play the keyboard regarless of significant inability. Alright I get it. It's your show. Don't scream and cry and sing about how much you love Jesus when you won't spare a couple hours, at most, to allow someone else to feed the hungry!

After a few minutes of wailing and jabbering from the Korean females in the front of the bus, Sarah comes to the back of the bus where I'm muttering and trying to get an idea of what's going on from Katie's translation. She says, "God has told me, 'everything will be fine'. OK?"

What does that mean?

I may believe it but real people have real logistics to deal with while others hang on to fuzzy platitudes.

Apparently that meant that we would go to the bank after we dropped off everyone else at the church, then go buy food. By the way, we frequently needed to visit the bank as we tried to avoid carrying 10 times the national average yearly income on our yellow, weaponless persons. I still had no idea where or how we'd get the food to Lokichar but we were going nonetheless.

As luck or providence would have it, we happened to meet a woman also attending the REM, named Jael. She was a very upright, noble looking woman in a dark blue dress. She overheard me explaining my issues of delivering food to Lokichar to the driver. She explained that a Lokichar stop wouldn't take a couple hours off our trip. It was but 5 minutes off the main road and we would just need to talk to a teacher from Lokichar to handle the supplies we would be leaving. Katie mentioned that there were women from Lokichar in her table group. The driver said this sounded ridiculously simple and was totally on board with doing this when we headed back to Nairobi.

Jael led us to a wholesaler who we bought out. He only had 20 boxes, which was about $40. Next logistical problem...where to get more food to actually buy? I bought out all his supply of 5 liter juice concentrate too amid objections that this was plenty. These people are terrible at math. I watched Sarah count out 1000KES from only four 200KES bills. I literally had to explain how there are FIVE 200/= bills in 1000.

I was only getting started.

We were running late so we headed back to the church. My team had already started their discussion, and my boy, Benjamin, was running assistant. I had no idea what I'd missed but it didn't matter. These were a bunch of pastors and I could write a children's book with how simple these concepts were. The amazing part is that Rev. Lee can go on and on for hours about such simple ideas. She, herself, even claims the concepts of salvation were meant for the simplest among us to understand. Anyways, enough of that.

This was the last day and I was in full mission mode. It was good to finally see the actual boxes of biscuits for the first time. I started calculating costs and delivery space. I was drawing diagrams, calculating the free space in the bus, and scribbling conversion equations all over my notebook. I found out that we had enough money to get so much food we couldn't possibly fit all the hundreds of boxes I wanted to get on the fully loaded bus without the 'Director' and others sitting uncomfortably on these boxes for a bumpy 3 hour drive. That was if I could even eventually get a last second agreement to stop at Lokichar. I couldn't get a last day guarantee. I was through taking chances with these people.

We gave the first boxes and juice we bought to Naomi's care for the Lordwar kids. For all the trouble, and incredible waste of money and time, at least one person seemed to appreciate it.

I was no longer waiting on breaks. I immediately went to Naomi, who was usually busy with meal preparations or watching/taking care of kids. She was one person I felt I could trust to help without constant self concern or prior obligations getting in the way. After several days of frustration and broken trust, this was immensely refreshing. I was constantly on the lookout for people not only genuinely looking to help the less fortunate despite no personal gain, but actually able to deliver that help.

Sarah definitely has the heart for the former, but with her pulled by obligations to REM, she was proving unreliable for the latter. Raph, one of the very awesome African missionaries that's come to Turkana for the express purpose of helping kids with Sarah before, mentioned that all the other trips were exactly like what we were hoping to do here. Ugh! That does not help my sour feelings toward REM and Sophia's deception.

Naomi understood my issue about delivery to Lokichar and immediately said she'd talk to her colleges and see what she could find out.

On my way back to the church, Rael met me outside the entrance and pulled me around a corner. She had changed from her usual dress to a bright yellow shirt and pants today and her hair looked a bit more slicked. I must say it was working for her. Essentially she came out and rather boldly said she "want(ed) to go with me." Go where? "Wherever you live. Wherever you go." What?! She wanted to stay with me? In Nairobi, in America? "Wherever you live."

Not expected. I awkwardly chuckled at the complimentary proposal and said, "I don't think my girlfriend would be okay with that." Actually, at first, I think I awkwardly said I'd have to "check with my girlfriend" because with her heavy accent and broken English I wasn't totally sure she wasn't just sick of staying at the church, sleeping on the ground, as many of the other attendees were.

When it became more clear, I couldn't help but try and get more info about her, if only to deflect while I processed a rather personally unique, life experience. It turns out she's 26, married at 19, has 3 kids, and is a teacher in Lokichar! It was all hard to believe about this rail thin, beautiful girl.

It was then I told her about my plans for Lokichar and how I was needing someone who taught there to handle the food for the children.

Focus on the mission! Don't stare at the bright eyes!

She was amenable. Excellent! Things were finally starting to happen.

Stop thinking about the smile. You love Katie!

Around this time, Naomi had gathered Jael from earlier, and Bishop Manje, who seemed eager to help. Bishop Manje and his wife, I later found out, moved to Turkana from Nairobi and started the church there connected with the school. They are really amazing people and seem to genuinely have a generous heart for the suffering of these people.

After filling Manje in on the situation, he jumped on the phone and got a man he knew onto gathering hundreds of biscuit boxes (he pronounced it "bis-kuwits"). He informed me that the man would get back to him in the afternoon if he could procure the abnormal sum.

Lunch had already rolled around. I was anxious and tired of disappointment. Rael suggested lunch.

Sure, fine.

When we went to the line all the the food was already gone. Rael missed lunch because she was with me trying to handle the food situation. I signaled her to follow me and I went to the small house where the special team member food was kept. As I knew it would be, it was still plentiful. I filled a bowl to overflowing, left the house, then out of site of everyone, gave her mine. She seemed to think we would share, but I certainly wasn't going to eat anything now. She claimed my lack of meat eating was the cause of my dry lips. I'd never heard of anything like that before.

I took the opportunity to grill her about the situation in Lokichar. 7 schools there, 1 serving of porridge a day for the kids, 2 of the schools have 350 children each, so there's more than the original 700 I thought, and she teaches the little ones.

About this time, as usually happens anytime I stand still around here, other people start to gather around me. A couple guys from Lokichar, and a few others I don't really know but somehow know me join in on the conversation. I think I'm somewhat of a white/yellow novelty. One of the guys from Lokichar is Rael's brother. Apparently this was a perfectly natural time to mention that her brother thinks she should leave Lokichar and marry me. She says this with that cute, half smirking smile she does, and the other guys seem to have no objections to the idea.

I wish I hadn't been so dumbfounded. I wish I hadn't deflected, as I really wanted to figure out what she had in mind. Did she really not like her husband? Was he going to be cool with her bailing with the kids or did she plan on abandoning them? Was such open talk of divorce so common? So very curious. She obviously had no concept of the immigration issues involved.

As ridiculous as the idea was to leave Katie, I would be lying if I said I wasn't the slightest bit tempted. If she were in the states and I wasn't with Katie, she'd be marriageable, but also very probably not interested in me and my upper-middle class income. She'd certainly be worth a lot more than the 32 goats that were paid for her first marriage.

She asked if I was going to marry Katie. I said, "very probably". This pleased Katie greatly after I had relayed the tale and basked in my "I told you so" moment. She had a very hard time appreciating having a boyfriend that gets hit on by other women. I think it's a trust and insecurity issue. I can certainly relate.

The rest of the REM meeting went terribly slowly and finishing it dragged on. The only thing keeping me awake was determination for the mission and finding a view to stare at that didn't have super-model thin, 20 year old moms whipping out their giant, beautiful breasts and trying to drown their baby with them. There were more exposed breasts here than at a PETA protest.

The REM ended at 4pm, the public bus to Lokichar could take the food as well as the attendees from there at 6pm. Bishop Manje said they would go under the care of a friend of his from Lokichar, Moses, and Rael would be there as well. Things could still work out.

Finally REM ends! Everyone wants pictures and contact info. I don't talk to the Bishop until 4:45pm. He's handling things with many people. We're ready to go finally, but the bus is gone. I have no idea why as we rented his services for the entire week. I suggest the only other form of transportation I'm aware of for the distance; taxis. Like a white-collared super hero he says, "there's no time, we must take the motorcycles!"

Up to this point I thought there were just a bunch of roving motorcycle gangs. All this time the dudes hanging out on bikes were in fact one man taxes.

Bishop Manje, Katie and I jump on to the back of 3 and the drivers sped us off to town. Why I don't own a motorcycle is beyond me. Damn those things are fun.

We buy the food. Now these are shady shanty shops. The storeowner's wife, off to the side, is loudly counting with me as I lay down bill by bill. There's a small hill of rice bags and about six guys just chilling on them, staring at us from 5ft away. They've all seen the secret kangaroo pouch I hide all my valuables in and could murder/rape me and katie with little trouble or simply never deliver the food. I would have zero recourse at this point and could only trust the Bishop's word that these people were legitimate.

I'm barely hanging on here. How are they getting on the bus? Who's going to be responsible after that? Do they need a ticket? Is the large amount of food going to cost extra to ship?

Bishop Manje agreed with my concerns. "To the bus stations!" We jumped back on the patiently waiting bikes and sped off. I literally could have wandered the streets for weeks and never found the bus station in this small town. It was madness fighting chaos that worked only with intelligence.

The bus station was basically a caged booth with a small sign stuffed in a wall by a drainage ditch. It happened to be right next to the restaurant(they call them hotels) we went to the first night we arrived when our bus broke down.

Dozens of people were just sitting about on steps. Some were trying to sell trinkets, woven hand brooms, or bundles of sticks that turned out to be delicious, natural toothbrushes. Others were begging or looking for work.

It was constant hassling, but I've seen the living conditions. A torn scrap of leather sandals is the good life here for many. Many have callused heels like a worn hoof. I didn't see a single edible plant miles before we even got close to this desolate hellhole. Later I asked why they don't go to nicer areas south. The answer I got was they get attacked and killed because of tribal warfare. Sam Kineson's idea to "get them out of the fucking desert" sounds great until you find out the original racism happens to be black on black crime. Sure there's fighting over water and religion, but there's recent fighting over nothing but history. Nairobi is nicer but those who are able to make it that far often end up filling slums for lack of jobs. I can't really begrudge them anything.

Ten men fought over who would get to load the biscuit boxes onto the bus. I think two got the job and were probably paid 50/=(about $0.60). One looked at me and said he was hungry. His ribbed chest and sunken cheeks said so long before he did. I gave him the last of the peanut candies Katie had brought. I told him to share with the other staring, hungry faces.

Moses had finally showed up, tickets bought, and everyone was paid. Mission Accomplished?

I didn't want to be Bush, thumbs up on an aircraft carrier 8 years before Bin Laden was killed, but I certainly felt a little better. I made sure the Lordwar kids got a hundred more boxes and promised Naomi I'd see about books. We didn't yet get the chairs for Lokichar kids like we'd planned, but hopefully an extra lousy biscuit or two a day helps them bare the rocks they learn on a little longer until we do. I'm still concerned about having to rely on Sarah for that later. Kenya is largely off the internet and gathering information with the language barriers is proving debilitating.

We returned to the church and the three riders asked for essentially a couple bucks each for taking us 3 places and waiting at each. I teased that a 3 hour bus ride to Lokichar would cost the same, but then handed over the money. They had big smiles when I didn't haggle, so apparently that was a good deal for them. I suspect most people here live off less than $2/day.

Shortly afterward there was someone yelling about the bus to Lokichar. Does it ever end? Apparently not.

I ran across the street and down the dusty road a bit to where the bus was doing this stop-n-go thing while a dozen people were yelling in Swahili(probably) and shoving each other to get on. I yelled for Moses at the windows and he finally came, leaning over 2 other people to wave excitedly at me. I asked him if everything was alright with a thumbs up. I'm not sure he understood a word I said, but he seemed so positive I felt reassured.

Pastor John was rushing 3 Lokichar women to the bus. Later I found out they might not have been able to make it that night if they didn't make this particular bus. It was literally packed 2 people to a seat and the aisle already looked full. Rael was among them.

One last handshake, a knowing look, and a sad goodbye and she was shoved on to that huge, overstuffed, sardine can.

Jon and I talked for a bit. He's a really good guy whom I think I judged a bit harshly from my first impression. I mentioned considering going to Lokchar to see the job done and he thought it was a great idea and wanted to come too. The group bus could pick us up tomorrow and Jon knew people in Lokichar that could accommodate us. He mentioned that one of the women there was his student who when they met was only at a 4th grade learning level even though she was a young adult age.

I finally decided against it as I didn't want to leave Katie alone to all the packing.

As it turns out, we both regret that decision now.

My Africa Trip - 7

Chronicle of 6/3/11

I awoke at around 4am(why is it always 4am? That's 2pm PST time.) to the feeling of bugs crawling all over me; dozens of them. They looked vaguely like wasps, but if the butt end was shaped like a maggot. The horrifying, hateful things were everywhere. Luckily they didn't seem to fly well, but their slow determined writhing and crawling was revolting. I stomped them dead for maybe 30 minutes. They were everywhere. In the beds, on the floors, in the bathroom, on and inside the mosquito nets. The way they'd find cracks in the netting and crawl up the inside of the netting makes me want to throw up.

After killing maybe 50-100 of them, I finally found where they were getting in. The crack under the door. I stuffed a towel under the door and killed probably 10 more as they found ways past the towel defense.

I was only able to sleep after another quick cold shower rinse, hopping into Katie's single bed, and stuffing the netting bottoms under the mattress as deep as it would go. Later there were only a few that got through the towel, but the slaughter of dead bugs covered every single square inch of the small room and bathroom we were staying in. When we asked others, no one else had experienced this strange attack.

REM went on as usual and staying my usual positive, optimistic self was becoming harder all the time. My table guys' perpetual friendliness certainly helped a lot.

Up to this point I had been relying on Sarah's limited information as well as control of our bus to tell me when I could go to town to search for food. She had said lunch time. This did not happen. I finally decided to be more proactive as Sarah was obviously spread too thin with REM and everything else she was doing.

The whole reason we picked Kenya, Sarah, and this trip to Turkana was because we were coming to a far off alien land and wanted to make sure we had a guide that was doing the same things we wanted to do. This was not happening as we had been told. REM was taking up way more of our time than I could have possibly imagined.

I talked to a couple people and found out the school connected to the church was taught by a wonderfully kind woman named Naomi. I spoke with her about getting the local Lordwar kids a bit more than one meal a day, and hopefully getting it to last. She suggested sweet biscuits. You could purchase one box of 300 servings for 240/= (about $2). "Wonderful", I thought.

As Sarah was too busy to go during lunch, she said "plenty of time later." I knew this was ridiculous when I heard it. I saw the REM schedule. I knew how late it went. Hope overcame logic and I told Naomi I'd go get the biscuits during the dinner break.

Sure enough, it was dark by dinner time, and going outside the compound at night equals guaranteed murder/rape for anyone not brown enough. I apologized to Naomi and promised the next day for sure. Come hell or high water or murder/rape, tomorrow for sure as it was the last day we were to stay in Turkana.

One part of REM that was different that day was something they called "hugging instructions", or something like that. They asked I work the music during this time as it was kind of like a show with models demonstrating different kinds of hugging and how to do them appropriately for humorous effect. It was a welcome break.

The big guy from our missionary group, Isaac, mustache and all, dressed as a woman w/ make up. It was interesting not just because a man in drag is consistently entertaining, but because they were concerned about men and women hugging too closely. So essentially their answer for the sexual perversion of a man and woman hugging too closely, was to employ a drag queen. Ridiculous, but funny none the less; especially so, with the Beegees Music and dancing.

Anyways, according to the REM guidelines, appropriate hugging during the meeting, between a man and a woman is to hold both each others hands, look into each other's eyes and say "I love you in Jesus." While the man on man hug is a big bear hug and the "I love you in Jesus" tag line.

The guys are always super friendly so the big hugs on the way back to my table from working the music weren't anything new. The awkwardness was with the women. As a representative of REM, I actually had to stop two women from coming in for a real hug. Naturally, this was awkward for everyone involved. One of the women I'm pretty sure simply didn't understand the hugging announcer's broken English while the other woman, was of course, Rael. I had already passed around the far side of her table on the way to the back of the room where my table was, and she called me back for a hug. Substantiation!

Little did I now just how right I was. More on that later.

That evening I spent time with an 18 year old Turkana local boy. I tried to explain what snow is as he tried to teach me some local dialect words. He spoke maybe 100 English words and with a heavy accent and I'm apparently linguistically retarded because he probably repeated "Yohtu"(hot in English) a 100 times and I still am not sure I ever got it right. I am sure he never understood what snow was though. It was like trying to describe color to a blind man. Apparently most all of the 20+ tribes in Kenya have different local dialects. They all supposedly speak Swahili and the closer to major cities they are the more British English they speak. I later read that while Africa is only about 12% of the world's population it has 30% of all the world's languages.

I gave the boy my dinner and tried to get more information about what life in Turkana was like. Very poor, very few jobs, rather dangerous, nothing too new. He did point out a rather sophisticated power station that was there and mentioned that mostly foreigners were brought in to run it. Apparently education is also extremely lacking. Later I did a simple math test on a couple boys in the sand. Their method for calculating a single digit multiplication like 6x8 was to make 8 rows of 6 slashes each and count them one by one.

This wasn't an indication of lack of intelligence. Them both jumping to the same poor method was indicative of poor teaching. Apparently they don't have their own books either. Something I vow to remedy.

My Africa Trip - 6

6/4/11 (trying to remember the past two days)

The days are blurring together, so much has been happening. Every night I go to bed exhausted. I don't have nearly enough time to journal during the day, and am so tired by night I sleep with the pen in my hand.

On 6/2/11 we began the first real day of REM. I hesitate to start listing all the problems I have with this, but I struggle to remember the last time I've tasted regret this bitter. For everything that I hate about this trip(heat, difficulties, sickness, etc), this church meeting that sucks all my time and effort away from the sole reason I came here at all is the only thing that actually really pisses me off. I was totally expecting hardship and while I enjoy colorful complaining, I am really happy to take on that hardship if it means I'm going to make even the smallest difference in some starving kids' lives. REM taking me away from that mission is frustrating beyond belief. How poorly things go stack on my patience like a thousand tiny weights.

As I write this I have cool air on my wet face, and all the problems seem days behind me. Even so, at the time my blood was boiling more and more each day.

Everything from the music equipment to the name tags on the attendants was very disorganized, to put it mildly. When registration started, only one of my group showed up. I was hopeful no one else would come so I could focus on helping the kids. This was not in the cards. After attendees were switched, and new and late people showed up, I ended up with 18, more than any other group.

This did not please me. Every day I'm trying to assess the needs (mainly hunger) of these many kids, figure out where to buy everything, what to buy, how to deliver hundreds of these items to their destinations, one of which is 3 hours away on a road that's more an off roading excursion than anything man made. This is all being done during extremely short meal breaks by talking to people who can barely understand my English better than the little I could understand theirs. I speak maybe 3 words of Swahili and zero of Turkana dialect.

One of many explaes was the simple word "hot". In California, we pronounce it like "hAHt". They pronounce it like Mufasa saying "hOHt". There was so much confusion i started doing my best African Lion King impression as a half-joke. Somewhat surprisingly this actually helped a lot. I felt more than a little ridiculous, but countless times I would change my voice because they simply couldn't understand me unless I was doing my horrible James Earl Jones accent.

Speaking of hunger, I've completely lost mine. Maybe from the heat, or fury, but I constantly feel like I'm on fire. I also can't seem to even pretend to be hungry with 30 starving kids staring at everyone eat from behind barbed wire. The attendants get maybe some rice and beans and a little bit of cabbage-like vegetables. Usually there's not enough for everyone of the around 150-200 people. The REM Team members, on the other hand, get a totally separate meal of rice, beans, goat, soft fluffy bread & stewy sauce, a variety of vegetables and lots of it. They make this tomato & onion mix with some tangy sauce that's extremely good. I can only put a bite or two in my mouth before I'm done and give it to someone w/o any food.

Really irritated by the REM meeting by day one. The heat, sweat and stink multiply the effect. There was off key singing, constant instrument mistakes, and repeating of song verse/choruses about 5 times after everyone felt good about them, climaxed the emotion, then awkwardly continued on wondering why we didn't stop. This was on the songs everyone liked. Half the time songs were sung at screeching, high keys, with the wrong words displayed so the people awkwardly tried to hum along to a song they obviously had never heard, and weren't being sold on. Then there were the dancing motion songs... Getting a bunch of grown ass African men dancing like 16-year-old Japanese cosplayers is only impressive the first time. The women, a huge portion of which were actively breast feeding, didn't seem incredibly interested either. I later found out that many of them didn't even understand, let alone read, English.

There was no speaker present. They played a DVD of this old Korean woman, Reverend Lee, preaching while a Korean looking man translated what she said every so often. This essentially made an 18 hour day out of maybe 4 hours of pertinent information.

How does that math work out? Around 90-95% of the audience were pastors, or other clergy. The rest were mostly team members, 8 of which were the only Koreans, and only ones that could understand Korean. All of the Koreans have already heard this exact teaching multiple times. So for much of the day the audience was hearing Korean they didn't understand a word of, speaking in tongues that's only distinguishable from epilepsy with a trained eye, or songs they don't know, couldn't learn, or couldn't care less.

Maybe I'm focusing too much on the negative. I didn't see any guard towers around the barbed wired fencing and the one gate opened freely during the daylight hours. Pretty much everyone stayed so it wasn't all heat torture and propaganda. At least the guys at my table seemed to genuinely want to know every logical reason to believe that Jesus actually is the Son of God, even if they already knew 90 out of 100 of them.

I don't think any of the guys at my table really needed me, but they all seemed extremely interested in getting my contact info and staying in touch. All were very friendly and genuine when they weren't sleeping through the fifth time Rev. Lee repeated something they'd years ago already come to believe. Plus several made a point to thank me personally. They all seemed to like me, although I'm still not totally sure why. The only real interactions we had was during discussion time and all I did was listen actively and loudly repeat what they were saying with different word summaries...oh right, so there's that.

Yes. No one's beyond pride it seems. Sometimes I think we like our ego's stroked more than we do our erogenous zones. No matter, service is very rewarding. When I wasn't furiously angry and sweaty about the meetings, I was very happy ...and sweaty.

A quick word about the African people I've come in contact with. The men are all extremely friendly. I barely know anyone and it's all hugs and smiles. They are incredibly warm, talkative, and funny. Many are missing half their teeth, and/or have scars that look like burn torture, but they act like life is a gift and a joy, even when they're frequently trying to get free food. They solicit free stuff more than a San Franciscan bum, except they don't refuse food or work and their clear eyes are obviously not interested in booze or drugs.

As I've stated, the kids are incredibly nice and playful. Katie and I love being playful so they constantly surround us when they're not being chased away by an adult and a stick.

The women on the other hand are a totally different story. Apparently women are sold off into marriage for goats at very early ages. The poorer the family, the less goats and earlier the age they seem to do this. The better families, I'm told, can get up to 200 goats at 1-3000/= each, or $12-$36 each. Pastor John, the bus preacher, told me a sad story of a 14 year old being sold for 2 goats because the parents were so poor. He seemed genuinely broken up by this.

Maybe it's the strict rules about married women interacting with other men, or because they're a bunch of racists, but most of them stared at my glowing alien skin only when I wasn't looking directly at them. Then were rather stand-offish when I tried to make eye contact, smile, and be friendly, like the men all seem to do.

Most were except for one rather attractive woman, named Rael. She wasn't one of the several towering, Naomi Cambell-looking, 6 1/2ft tall goddesses, but she was thin, had big bright eyes, cute hair, and a full, white smile. (seriously, there were at least 4 women from Turkana that were model to super model gorgeous. They were better looking without make-up or nice clothes than every single model on every ad, billboard, or TV commercial in the much richer Nairobi capital city. I actually toyed with the idea of managing their modeling career. Even if they got mediocre modeling/acting careers they'd be thousands of times richer.)

I think I mentioned teeth, but it was really a minority that seemed to have all their teeth. I don't know if they yank out teeth with cavities because the nearest dentist is a 20 hour, packed bus ride away, or because they enjoy fight clubs, but there are a lot of missing teeth.

Anyways, I caught Rael's gaze a couple times, once I could swear she blushed. This is a tough claim when I'm partially red-green color blind, and she's a dark skinned African woman. It was more in the way she rolled her head down and to her shoulder like she was embarrassed by my smile.

Later, I was at the lunch table, where the food was being passed out to the attendants, and I was annoyed that the team members were getting huge portions of superior food, and it was looking like there wasn't going to be enough for the attendees. At this point I was extremely annoyed by just about everything and wasn't remotely hungry. I had a big bowl of everything sitting in front of me, untouched, while they were scraping the bottom of pots to give the last people a little rice. Other members seemed rather urgent about making sure I ate. With the heat, the way the REM meeting was going, and the fact that I just wanted to be helping the hungry kids, 30 yards away behind barbed wire fences, calling out for food all added up to equal a rage fueled, complete lack of hunger. I only hesitated to take my food to them because they are mad dogs over free stuff. They don't understand English or the basic concept of sharing and they are born manipulators. They can get teary eyed begging for a balloon when they already have one hidden away. There's so many of them it's hard not to see a group and miss the individuals. A few stand out, and I can tell how smart they are. I can't blame them when they only eat the one meal a day given them by their school, but to give to one while the others see is suicide. I barely had enough to give each kid a couple beans and a pinch of rice but the chaos would never let that happen. The grabbing and the screaming and crying of those roughly pushed aside and stomped on for a grasp at a bowl of freely offered food was in no way worth it.

As I stood there, waiting to see how the line progressed, I inwardly lamented Sarah's continued broken promises. Many times she said she would show me in town where I can go to get large quantities of food the teachers could pass out to the kids in an orderly fashion.

Then Rael came up to me. "You're not eating?"

"No, I'm not very hungry."

No woman here even acknowledged my presence let alone came up and started a conversation. She definitely likes me. "What's your name? Where are you from? What's your background? Yadda yadda." I'm having a hard time not being distracted by how cute this girl is.

Katie comes up to me. Rael quickly says "I guess I'll talk to you later" and scampers off. I chuckled to myself and later mentioned to Katie how Rael likes me. Katie of course rolls her eyes and continues to crush my dreams of starting a harem or at least of feeling somewhat still attractive despite getting old, fat, and balding. She claims I overestimate my ability to read the signals. More on my devastating validation later.

The line is finally dwindling but the food is essentially gone. I think the one guy got someone else's left over beans and loved it. The kids are starving, but the adults really aren't doing much better. The Koreans wave me off with a "They're used to it." I might have thrown up in my mouth if I had anything in my stomach.

"I'm good, just need water", blah blah blah, I finally convince them to give my food away which seems totally strange to me. I'm the rich fat American. My sole purpose for coming to Africa was to give some of my excess to the less fortunate. I'm thicker than 95% of the attendees and that's rather unusual for me. I'm plain not even remotely hungry. Give it away already! She hands my heaping bowl to one person. The rest of the few get rice, if that. ::FacePalm::

A couple kids (smarter ones I recognize) have snuck onto the church/school property and look longingly at the left over beans. I scraped a few different plates together onto one plate and snuck it to them. I hissed at them to "share" but they don't seem familiar with the concept. One kid grabbed the plate, and the smaller kid right next to her immediately gave up on the several bites they could have shared to look for other food. I don't think they understood me at all, and were shortly after chased away by some adult with a stick. I think my hives are starting to itch just thinking about it.

They've grown up in a land of scrape by, droughts, few natural resources, terrible crime, and on-going tribal warfare. They literally are growing up in a land where spears and fire arrows are still being used to kill other tribes for water rights, religion, or just because that's what the tribes did for generations.

Begging has almost become a societal feature here. Even the adults aren't too proud. Later I gave my watch away to one of my table guys. It was a cheap sports watch from Walmart that I actually kinda miss(used it to wake up), but apparently it was a piece of the 21st century for these guys. I got several requests for it. The main problem is so big though, I feel embarrassed giving my dinner to an older kid under protection of night. It's a silly drop of rain in the vast vast desert and I feel like a silly douche, thinking I can make a difference.

My Africa Trip - 5

6/2/11 (Chronicles of 6/1/11)

Such a long day. I haven't had a drop of caffeine. I'm very surprised I had so much energy all day. Breakfast was the familiar bread, egg, soy-flavored sausage and Kenyan tea. Apparently this is all people eat here for breakfast, or at least serve foreigners. Sleep was fitfully hot. I'd sleep on one side and wake up soaked in sweat. Then I'd roll to the dry side and wake up with the down side soaked. This cycle went on pretty much every 15-20 minutes through out the entire night. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ we have a cold shower at the St. Theresa's Diocese we're staying at. I would probably be dead by now without it. Of course by breakfast I'm already sweating and all they serve to drink is hot tea, hot milk, or hot cup of "go live somewhere else pussy." They have no refrigerators here and love it. Power is in short supply I'm told and the only fridges are ones licensed out by Coca Cola, but require stocking only Coca Cola in them. Nothing else. I haven't even seen one of these. Every soda, Fanta, etc I've had here was hotter than my core body temperature.

But wait, the fun's just starting! So somehow I agreed to be a "table leader" for the church group we're with, but really had no idea what I had signed up for. Apparently the incessant fire burning in the sky and the terribly sweaty nightmarish sleep wasn't stressful enough for me. Apparently agreeing to work 18 hour days in these conditions and being a responsible representative of an international religious organization, I'm not even a member of, sounded like no big deal.

Honestly, I was wanting to be helpful in gratitude for all the help Sarah was providing, as well as, at this time, I was under the impression that this wouldn't interfere with our plans to help kids in Lordwar and Lokichar. At the time I had zero idea what a terrible, terrible mistake that was. I'm currently nursing a case of heat/stress blisters. They are all over my chest and back and vaguely resemble AIDS.

Katie had the brilliant idea to bring things for the kids. We gave out two little peanut flavored hard candies to two kids; one each. They ran off and somehow multiplied into a swarm of about 20 kids. There was grabbing, reaching, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I forced the wild pack into a line and did my best to recognize the sneaky little bastards that kept going to the back of the line. Luckily the return customers weren't bright enough to properly hide the first candy. Some already had their first candy in their mouth, others had their first in their non-reaching hand, but they all had identically desperate and pleading eyes as if they'd never received one.

Katie's now afraid for her bag. The little devils know the bag still contains some serious goodies.

Then we broke out the balloons. We almost started a riot. A tiny people riot. We had to have a couple of the adults help translate. I called for a line and a ripple of kids screamed at each other to form a line. You'd think we were handing out the last supply of gold on the planet. If i tried handing out a couple balloons in one hand they were snapped at like I was feeding starved piranhas.

About 100 kids were going ape-shit over 72 balloons. It started with handing 1 balloon to one kid, then it exploded as if they could smell free stuff being given out. We were blowing them up and tying them off as fast as we could. I kept calling for them to share, but I was happy when they didn't start eating each other. 12-14 year-olds were dragging toddlers barely old enough to walk to get a balloon. The rapid and frequent popping sounds combined with the screaming, wrestling, and running around was madness. It was pandemonium.

Most of them seemed to have a blast. I was surprised but a few of them actually were able to get their balloons home unpopped. Later, around dusk, I saw bright round colors bouncing joyfully in the back yards of a couple close by homes.

They were all so extremely friendly. I've never had my hand held by so many tiny strangers. Doing anything fun with one of them is extremely risky because once one of them enjoys something, EVERYONE must get on board. Taking a picture meant getting attacked by a small horde. Throwing a kid up in the air meant every kid wanted a ride.

One baby, maybe two, made a horrified face like I launched him into orbit. I felt bad, but he beamed and kept asking for more. He made that terrified face every single time and giggled to the point of tears every time he was back safely on the ground, immediately arms up begging for more. He wore a red, white, and blue Obama t-shirt that looked older than him. Come to think of it, they all wore torn, filthy clothes that looked older than them.

Another baby actually wore shoes. They were shaped like sandals but all rubber. He insisted on wearing them backwards, even after I tried switching them to the correct foot. He'd run, arms out with elation glowing on his face like he was winning the special Olympics. It was almost unbearably adorable.

It was after playing with the little monsters that I first noticed the blotchy red welts all over my chest and back with a huge raised clump in the middle of my cleavage. At least they didn't start itching the first day.

I didn't notice any more mosquito bites that night so I pulled the mattress off the bed onto the ground to get out of the ridiculously hot netting and directly under their top notch fans. No lie, they are literally the best, most powerful house fans I've experienced anywhere. I'd still kill for A/C.

The only relief all day from the heat is the cold shower. Without water on your head the fan just feels like a blow dryer. Speaking of dry, I'm trying to get used to waking up with my eyes plastered shut with eye boogers and grating the walls of my throat to stimulate saliva. Finding time to buy bottled water is getting more and more challenging and I'm afraid to brave the tap water against travel guides' advice.

My Africa Trip - 4

6/2/11 (Chronicles of 5/30/11)

So much has been happening I didn't have a moment to write from waking up to passing out at night. I guess when I last wrote we were on the bus. We drove from 5:30 AM to 11PM at night. We didn't get to the place we were staying until 1AM. About 7 of those hours were spent on the road forsaken by God and man. It was so bumpy and broken. Katie almost threw up, half the back bumper was busted off, and somewhere along the way the positive lead on the battery broke clean off. It took a solid day to fix all the battery problems. We used a taxi in the interim.

While we were trying to jump the bus at 11pm at night to take us the final mile or so, we stopped at probably the shadiest establishment I've ever entered. The cashier was behind an iron gate and fencing. The tables were moth, mosquito, and cockroach covered bench styled. All conversation stopped for a split second as every head in the place swiveled around to check out us yellowish albino folk. All the African missionaries from the Nairobi capital city said we were the first Asians they'd ever seen. We must have looked like ghosts to these people miles past the middle of nowhere.

Their specialties were fried goat and fried fish. The Africans seemed to love it, but from my perspective, the name doesn't do the horror of the reality justice. The goat was a pile of bite sized greasy bones with some steaming, stringy jerky like meat clinging to them like cement. This looked welcoming when compared to the abortion that was the fish. It was completely whole, head and all, covered in a greasy thin batter, but somehow that depth-less eye staring at me was clear as day. At least it was until the power and lights in the whole place went out. I'm pretty sure my butthole could have crushed diamond it puckered so hard in the darkness. I was waiting to get murder/raped when every one's cellphone lights flicked on and the haunting fish eye stared at me in the rock concert ambiance.

It was late and I wasn't remotely hungry. Grace and others had been handing out snacks every couple hours on the bus ride and I couldn't even eat much of that either. I so wish I could convey how funny Grace is about eating. It's totally the stereotypical, loud, heavy-accented Asian voice whenever she and the other Korean women get to talking, especially about food. "We gotta EAT!" I can't possibly do it justice in text, but I don't think she said a single thing all week that wouldn't be written with an exclamation point at the end.

Of course Katie was all about the food too. The Fanta was pretty orangy & delicious after wiping the ubiquitous dust off.

There was a guy outside this fine establishment begging. We tried to give him money but he refused and asked for food. His face looked like it had been bashed in with a sledgehammer. Seriously. Right between his awkwardly spaced, sad staring eyes was a huge squarish indention. I vaguely wondered if the fancy restaurant didn't serve his kind. I felt like I had accidentally stumbled into a black panther party when we went in and our money was still good, so I don't know.

I don't think I've mentioned how progressively hot it has gotten during our trip but I will probably mention it a hundred more times. It is hot and humid like the boiling level of hell. I preferred the lungs full of kicked up dust just so I could keep the bus window open on my face to stay a little cool.

The new rooms are decent, but hot like oven broiling level of hell. They sit roughly 20 ft from the sun most of the day and continue to bake through the night. The mosquito nets make it even worse. The good news is mosquitoes reportedly can't handle this Turkana heat. The bad news is neither can I.

These Turkana people are literal super heroes. They live in the hottest place I've ever been and it's just starting to be their winter time! They're lucky to have a single meal a day. Their source of water, the local river, is seasonal. Which means sometimes they get water, and sometimes they eat their dead animals until they die themselves. They've had a 2 year drought and I have no idea how they're still here or why. They have like a seven foot average height(I didn't measure, but these people are TALL). They are somehow able to suck it up and throw being the nicest, friendliest, happiest people I've ever met on top of it all. I've heard desperation lends itself for the expectation of wanton theft, but I still have yet to be exposed to any of that.