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.