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!