slaughterhouse-5

no, nothing to do with dresden here. but before i get into the details of my christmas feast (and the preparation thereof), i'd just like to say that you are all so lucky to have such a dedicated blogger (also known as the lazy emailer) here behind the dashboard of this here device because you are the sorriest internet interactive crowd i've ever met. i mean, it's been what, weeks? since the last comment? sigh. temper tantrum finis.

so, turns out we didn't even miss the mince pies. at least, not me. a drunken feast with all seven of the tolerable expats in town. my friend jill roasted up a couple of delicious birds, the feathers of which she'd even plucked herself, and there was salad, i think, and some mashed potatoes and a bunch of other bowls full of food that i can hazily remember the color of. but yes, a wonderful drunken evening that ended with everyone jumping into the swimming pool in their knickers at three in the morning.

which brings us to a very hungover xmas morning. was supposed to depart nairobi at half past seven and surprisingly, we made it onto the road at nine thirty. my friend aileen and i drove up to nyeri, in the central highlands, to spend xmas day with my friend peter and his family. nyeri is home to the famous treetops hotel where queen elizabeth became, in fact, queen elizabeth after her father died.

our two hour journey quickly turned into three and a half after an ill-advised trip to a grocery store along the way to pick up alcohol supplies, aka xmas presents, for peter and his family. um, does anyone in this country ever shop for presents or ingredients for that afternoon's feast before that 25th? talk about a last minute rush.

upon arrival in nyeri, we quench our thirst at a local watering hole as we wait for peter to arrive from the village to come and fetch us. they got a flat tire along the way. by the time we arrived at his parents house, it was three in the afternoon, a far cry from our planned nine thirty arrival, which they were anticipating so i could be on hand to slaughter the goat.

we'd just tumbled out of the car, barely greeted his parents, when a long knife with a dull blade was thrust into my hand. i made several attempts at the animal's neck but wasn't able to break the skin so handed over the knife to an expert who quickly sliced through, spurting blood all over. surprisingly, it was relatively tame, not nearly as gruesome as i'm making this sound. did manage to cut its hooves off and cut through the skin on the legs so the slaughterer could skin the beast (a little hard to do because its legs were still pumping blood and lamely kicking all the while). but watched, entranced as the professional skinned, gutted and carved up the creature, removing its internal organs and emptying its intestines. and you can bet your sweet fannies i've got photos of the whole thing just waiting to be posted on my flickr sight.

and while we're sitting there, with the goat carved up and tons of meat to be had, his father turns to me and says, "we also bought a cow for you to slaughter as well." and i turn around to see a calf being led to the slaughtering block before protesting and saying, "don't you think we'll have enough meat already?" which put off the blood-thirsty frenzy for another couple of weeks, i hope.

then a walk through the homestead - acres and acres of tea plants, animals of every stripe, fruit trees and vegetables you'd never seen grown. do you know that pineapples are a root? that bananas are actually strange berries on this crazy red drooping flower? ever taste arrowroot - some crazy cousin of a yam? no? good, don't. did i mention that their farm is in the valley of mount kenya - the country's largest mountain?

villagers flocked for miles to pay a visit with his family. we all feasted on grilled goat ribs and flank meat straight off the fire, while his mother tended to a delicious goat stew in the kitchen. the kitchen is basically a wooden shack with a fire and tons of pots in which every vegetable you have ever heard of simmered away, deliciously seasoned. his mom heaped everything onto overflowing plates, of which you had to eat two of before you were allowed to leave her sight.

we were treated to some delicious muratina - that's kikuyu for local brew - a honey wine of sorts. an extemely potent honey wine of sorts. which we followed up with some vodka mixed with pineapple squash (squash, or cordial, is british for Tang). which we followed up with some beer and whiskey and whatever else in sight was liquid. by the time the evening was over, we may have even been drinking dishwater but no one was sober enough to know the difference.

that's what kenyans do on xmas, folks, in case you were wondering. kill animals with dull knives, eat and drink everything in sight and then afterwards, at the height of drunkness, go out visiting your neighbors in the dark.

i suppose here would be a good time to mention that peter's family is one of the lucky few in the entire village to be able to afford electricity. it should also be mentioned that just because there's electricity there's no such thing as indoor plumbing. i'm talking holes in the ground in a dark outhouse somewhere in the backyard...

on our way to pay visits to his neighbors, we walked to a couple of bars in the village where everyone was agog at the sight of me. xmas 2005 shall forever be known in nyeri as the year that crazy white girl came to town. the villagers were wonderful and welcoming, buying me beer after beer (which i kept on giving to the friends that accompanied us and nursing the same one at each bar we went to - otherwise i wouldn't have been able to stand up).

then onto ndegwa's house, where his mother wouldn't let me leave until i'd eaten another meal in itself and taken a bunch of bananas for the road. she was ready to start a bonfire in the yard so we could slaughter yet another goat by its light, but i assured her that i would be fine with what she'd given me and thanked her repeatedly for her kindness.

after almost needing to roll home in the darkness, stuffed to the gills, we all fell into our beds and slept soundly through the night and i must admit that i was relieved that all the feasting was over...

and...

i woke up the next morning to his mother pushing a huge plate of bread, hardboiled eggs, sausages, fruit and cereal in my face, urging me to eat. now, i'll just let you all know that the amount of food we ate for breakfast i usually intake over the course of an ENTIRE day.

and then, more drinking. boxing day. which i'm sure represents something important but every kenyan i asked told me that it was for unwrapping the boxes you received on xmas. they take things very literal, these kenyans. but hey, maybe i'm wrong [insert completely unrelated aside: this would be great time for someone to POST A COMMENT about what boxing day actually is].
we go to scout out some young bulls at neighbor tom's farm that peter is thinking of purchasing. which, of course, only ends in more feasting. tea, bread and jam, fresh-picked plums, roasted maize. and that was all a precursor to the lunch we were able to escape (only because peter was wise enough to inform us beforehand that we would be required to eat when we returned to his home whether or not we feasted here so we gracefully escaped when tom's mother went out to milk the cow).

and right he was. when we returned home: more goat on the grill, more stew and veggies on mountaneous plates. and buckets of plums, kiwis and bananas awaiting us in the backseat of the car to return with us to nairobi. which we did reluctantly later that afternoon.

but not before i caught his father in the driveway as we were preparing to leave, trying to fit the cow, pushing it by the bum, into my backseat so i could take it with me and slaughter back home in my apartment.

almost as good as jamaican bobsledders

first, just wanted to thank you all for coming through with those mince pie recipes. i ended up scrapping the cooking anyway. number one, no time. number two, who the hell knows how to convert anything into metric anyway? i bought a much tastier black forest cake from a local bakery.

got to go ice skating today. for five minutes, it almost felt like christmas here. and then i walked outside into the sultry tropical sun and thought, who needs santa claus and a white christmas when you can suntan poolside in december? but maybe that was the near-concussion i got from the fall i took on the rapidly melting ice.

plans for tomorrow have changed. no one wanted to go to magadi, that hellish salt pit, except me. so instead, we're traveling two hours up-country to feast on some spring goats with peter's family and drink the day away. an authentic kenyan xmas.

merry christmas - feliz navidad - bon noel.
love to all.

mince pies and the salt pit

which is what i've been told/coerced into cooking and bringing along to a strange ex-pat xmas eve party i'll be attending this year.

so does anyone have a recipe? and what exactly is minced? i'm sure it's meat, but can you use goat? perhaps i can convince them that a mango rhubarb pie sounds tastier. because it does, at least to me. and probably the rest of the world with functioning tastebuds.

what is it with these british folk and their complete inability to manufacture anything edible? the worst part about the colonial era here - aside of course from all of the really bad things - is that kenyans have actually adopted this horrific cuisine as their own. unless, of course, you're eating more traditional food like ugali (which tastes like a mix between paste and that really do-it-yourself play-dough your midwestern babysitter made out of elmer's glue and bread, which i guess is essentially more paste) and roast goat (which i'm swearing off because i always end up with more of it stuck in my teeth than makes it into my stomach).

the weirdest part about this whole xmas eve party thing, though, is that no one attending is even british so i don't really get the whole mince pie thing...

i was supposed to go up-country with my colleague. but turns out we both have to work this weekend. so there'll be no chance of actually arriving anywhere we need to be before the holiday is actually over. instead, an expat xmas eve and then xmas day out on lake magadi, the saltiest lake on earth. it's got so much alkaline in it that if you submerge any of your body into it, the water will eat through to the bone. thank god i'm so graceful and not a klutz, eh? but yes, what's interesting about this place (aside from it perhaps being an incarnation of hell on earth) is that because it's so salty, the water evaporates so quickly and leaves a thick crust of salt all over what's left of the surface and around the edges. there's a salt-processing plant nearby and i'm pretty sure that i'm eating the lake anytime i use salt in this country. it might be interesting, right?

i was invited to spend the week after the holidays up in mt. kenya with an older couple and their two daughters. i'm trying to finagle all of my interviews and appointments around so i can accompany them on their post-xmas vacation. i'm beginning to love mountains. i never had much of a taste for them before i came here and i'm not about to up and move to denver just to live around some but i like them much more than i thought.

best news i've heard this week though? i got a plane ticket. to go to egypt. i'm headed there for a week in january to report the hell out of the gay scene there. i'll be in cairo and alexandria. and drinking up a storm with the big A. then back to nairobi, with A. in tow, and we'll head out to the Kenyan countryside before making our up north to see some sudanese refugees living in the northeastern part of the country.

i won't go into all the details because i've got to get some work done at the office before i head out to recommence pedophilia with the way-too-young-for-me radio guy, but i got into two car accidents yesterday. i'm fine. parts of the car are fine. and after a high speed chase around the city after the guy who sideswiped me, my bank account will be fine as he's paying for the damages. the other one? well, let's just say it's good that this woman already had some spinal cord injuries that she was en route to the doctor for because she would have had some whiplash otherwise. kenyans, not so savvy about their insurance fraud, eh?

happy holidays to you and yours (the yours might be unecessary because i think the only three people who are reading this thing are related to each other - and me).

the big m

a slight touch. of malaria. lrs asked if "a slight touch of malaria" was like being "a little pregnant." i'm glad to inform you all that no, it's an incremental tropical disease. so the fevers, numbness of limbs and hallucinations were minor. nothing that a hard dose of cipro, some super-duper alka-seltzer and a few self-injectable anti-malarials couldn't cure.

the worst part about the hospital? (aside from the nurse that didn't wear gloves when she drew my blood, of course.) it would have to be watching some terrible luke perry sci-fi mini-series on the tube and thinking that it was going to be the last thing i ever saw. i'm prone to dramatics, i admit. but that surely didn't help matters any.

kenyan hospitals are strange systems. it's a pay-as-you-go system. if you can't afford the next step in the treatment, you're out on your ass. there's no such thing as a post-paid hospital visit here. guess the british never instituted that whole socialized health care thing when they were busy ransacking the country.

thanks to my white skin, i breezed in and out of that joint. a typical jaunt to the hospital here can last years - no exaggeration. the staff didn't know what to do with me - i was jittery and energetic (trying to jump around a bunch so my limbs wouldn't go entirely limp). they're not used to such antics. most of the people they see are half-dead (from languishing in the hospital for days on end).

a speedy recovery. yesterday i was paddling around in lake naivasha, the only freshwater lake in kenya's rift valley - steering my way through hippos and pelicans. and to think, less than a week ago i was in a fluorescent-lit cubicle trying to figure out how to use a bedpan.

cheers,
karen

random thoughts

several things:

1. from a travel brochure i picked up in mombasa advertising the coast - "an African destination to rival first class tourist destinations." (see what i mean about everything being a farce?)

2. dragged the boy to see harry potter and the goblet of fire last night. what a crazy cultural experience. when you purchase tickets, you are assigned a seat and then ushered in (like a real theatrical experience). then, the curtain goes up and you're subjected to the kenyan national anthem (which is seemingly endless). now i know that we suffer through a lot of previews in the theatres back in the states, but dudes, i think i saw a preview for every movie that will end up in nairobi through xmas '06. afterwards, a barrage of commercials and theatre directives which are accompanied by an afro-beat version of "wonderwall." and then... the movie. until intermission. apparently, at the projectionist's discretion. and finally, when the movie is finished, you're expected to applaud long and loudly and stay throughout the entire rolling of the credits. i think the most striking difference, however, is that everybody removes their trash from the movie theatre themselves! quite interesting.

3. in my absence, a colony of lizards has hatched in my apartment. they're incredibly cute right now - they look like minature gumby-like figures. i imagine that will all change, however, once they grow a bit bigger. but they're great pest control - they eat all the insects that invariably make their way inside. and they're fantastic wall hangings for otherwise bare expanses of plaster.

4. it's independence day today. while everybody else celebrates their 42nd year of independence from british rule, i'm just rejoicing that parking is free.

still here

this might be a long one, folks, so buckle up.

dropped gregory off at the airport this morning and i must admit, i was a bit teary-eyed. Reading everyone's farewell blog posts and watching him disappear into the terminal, it finally hit me - i'm staying here. i'm going to try to make a life for myself in this place. at least until the end of january, if this grant money should ever materialize, but longer if those tightly-knotted purse strings in paris should ever figure out what a good bargain i am. as i drove back from the airport to the office after i sent my canadian friend packing back to the snowy airstrips of chicago and his anxious wife, i was reminded of my first trip into nairobi, in the dead black of a sunday evening - the awe, the excitement, the untold "adventures." it hasn't been what i expected in a lot of ways, but so much more in others. i'm looking forward to starting life here again - as someone who gets paid for her work (as a stringer temporarily). the world seems open, even for someone with an expired visa.

last week, greg and i took a trip to mombasa. i've never been somewhere so beautiful, or tropical, before. we took the overnight train from nairobi to the coast - one of the famous journeys in east africa. the lunatic express, as it's fondly referred to here. we traveled "first class" in a sleeper car with lots of germans, brits and australians who refused to talk to both the kenyans and us but we more than made do without their company. we were scheduled to depart at 7 p.m. but the train didn't start moving until well after 8:30, after we'd already eaten what passed for dinner - a watery broth and rotten fish for starters, undercooked chicken and chips for the main and a rubbery cake to finish. luckily, beer was included. we commented that we'd never seen a staff with lower morale. they were drunk and surly, and for good reason. turns out they haven't been paid since may. but they keep on coming back - in hopes of a paycheck, and because, honestly, they've got nothing better to do. will be a great story.

we awoke at 6:30 for breakfast the next morning, the sun slowly inching its way above the horizon. another delicious meal - half cooked sausages, eggs and stale toast. a real english treat, minus the beans. the train was scheduled to arrive on the coast at 8:30 - a thirteen hour journey at best to cover a mere 300 miles. we didn't pull into mombasa until 1:30 in the afternoon, but luckily the scenery was breathtaking, the beers (what few remained) were flowing, and the locals were chatty. as soon as we began to near the coast, the heat set in. i've south of nairobi before, but never into such sultry heat. ah, equatorial climate. nothing beats it. so, yes, 17 hours to cover 300 miles. do the math yourself. i can't - it'll make me wince.

upon arrival, we haggled until we found a reasonable cab driver, named geofred (gotta love these bastardized versions of british names) who took us off in search of a beachfront hotel. the first one we reached was completely booked, and they referred us to a second, which was also completely booked, but they wouldn't let us leave until they found a room for us. the place was amazing, on the oceanfront, palm trees galore and arabesque architecture. they quoted us a price, then we haggled them down another 15 bucks, and then upon payment, they said they could discount it even more if we paid in cash. they really wanted our business, for some reason. expecting rather drab accomodations, having totally come unprepared at the height of tourist season, we were shocked to find our room had an oceanfront view with a balcony overlooking the surf and palm trees. gotta love it here.

one of the more surreal moments was when we couldn't get our air conditioner to work (totally necessary in such sweltering tropical heat even though i detest the idea of it - also helps sooth suncharred skin...). this hotel employed a guard, a maasai in full dress uniform (ridiculously tacky) for gimmick. anyways, the ac was operated by remote control and ours didn't have batteries. the maasai comes knocking the middle of the night with another remote control and there are greg and the maasai pointing the remote control at the air conditioner. total absurdity. anachronistic, to say the least. another favorite of ours was a guy who looked like he was on permanent shore leave. he was made to dress in this ridiculous sailor's uniform to clean the pool and lay the cushions and beach towels on the lounge chairs. absolutely obscene.

went swimming in the indian ocean (still unbelievable) and snorkeling too - a grand 10 bucks for four hours spent in the water and in a coral park. spent a morning at the local nature preserve, formerly a cement quarry, that is home to none other than owen and mzee, international sensations. they're the tortoise and the baby hippopotamus that you may have read about in the news earlier this year. the hippo was stranded in the tsunami and found a home with this century-plus tortoise. tortoises, apparently, love to be storked and tickled under their chins and i had quite a time cuddling one.

it was slightly surreal to wake up each morning and see dhows (old african sailboats that are basically dugout canoes with masts attached) and camels along the shore. you couldn't walk two feet without encountering someone trying to sell you some incredible piece of crap. i ended up writing a story about beach hawkers. crazy color! we met some men who took walked their camels down the coast from northeastern kenya to mombasa for a month in packs of three in order to make "their fortune" during tourist season along the coast. we just started haggling for the hell of it, brewing competition along the beach to secure the best prices we could for something we had no intention of doing. "swim with the dolphins? sure, twelve hours, five bucks, food included?" hawker: "okay, deal." swimsuits, lobsters, fresh fruit, factory-made sculptures, carved wooden keychains, safaris, memorabilia photos, on and on and on...

slightly disturbing: the number of older german tourists, both men and women, who are there to sample the local sex worker scene. one of the hotel workers told us that some of the old german men, whose rooms she cleaned, were widowers already infected with AIDS who just have rampant casual sex with one girl after another. they travel with blood bags for ready transfusions and a massive supply of medication, intent upon screwing themselves to death. in addition to fueling the local economy, i must admit they did wonders for the fashion industry. i've never seen so many gut-busting speedos in my life. nothing like a red-bellied german hiking up and down the beach in search of fresh meat. would make a great great story. one of the reasons i want to get back.

woke up every morning to watch the sun rise over the indian ocean. palm trees galore, the freshest coconuts and passion fruit juice you'll ever taste, delicious grilled fish (if you could find yourself a restaurant that still had food - we had a couple of interesting run-ins). did manage to fry our backs to a deep crisp, when we were snorkeling, i presume, because it's too hot to sunbathe. instead, you lounge around under the shade of palm trees sipping cocktails and watching the tide come in and out. too amazing for words. i'll post some pictures later today.

(www.flickr.com/photos/94641153@N00/)

took the bus back home - less exciting as the train, and only slightly quicker. we left at 10 in the morning and arrived in nairobi around 8. but we did get door-to-door service (no kidding). 10 hours to go 300 miles? i'm not so good at math, i know, but my calculations put that at 30 MPH. you've got to see these roads.

an adventurous four days on the coast. if i'd gone to mombasa first, i'd never have come to nairobi. greg and i decided that when god had a fit of explosive diarrhoea, he created nairobi. it's the worst city planning exercise on earth. the british just wanted the most bang for their buck and threw everything together in the most craptacular scheme imaginable. and the africans, they love it. they're only adding to the chaos. mombasa has a much older feel to it - you can sense its history as east africa's largest port. life on the coast has a much mellower pace, the swahili is more metered and the people friendlier. it feels safer, which may be a ruse, but there's no employment to speak of (thus the beach hawkers). there are more matatus per square mile than grains of sand -- seriously. there are at least 5 matatus for every private car we saw there. but nairobi, despite all its flaws, is a wonderful place and i've loved calling it home.

went out for drinks with some kenyan friends last night. we sat around the table and listened to a local reporter tell all about his experience with the ULEVI. kenya just discovered the breathalyzer. (ulevi is an offshoot of mlevi, a swahili word meaning drunkard). they started doing road checks a week ago and have already pulled in thousands and thousands across the country. this guy, a government reporter, was hauled in with around 400 folks - all herded from a single checkpoint! they fine them each 10,000 shillings (less than 150 bucks) and release them - it's a petty offence. they're subjected to a barrage of tests, including a tongue twister - they're made to say "british coloniailist" two times to detect whether or not they're slurring. he said that there were such a variety of people there - priests, nuns, and laymen alike. people had even snuck in alcohol into the place that they were herded. sounds like more of a party went on inside the joint than at the places they patronized before they were arrested.

anyways, at this one checkpoint alone on a friday evening the police have pulled in a whopping 400,000 shillings. they've already made millions. we had a discussion about what they would do with all the money that they earned from this new program and i suggested that perhaps it could go into repairing the roads. but i was countered with the argument, if you repair the roads, then you'll put the truck drivers out of business (because they won't need as many if transport becomes more efficient), the mechanics out of business (because they won't have to repair the trucks that kill themselves on the road), the hotels out of business (because people won't need to eat and sleep because it takes a year and a day to get anywhere), etc. can't argue with that, can you?

then the conversation rapidly deteriorated into listening to everyone talk about how much better they drive when they're drunk and that this is just a silly scheme. one of the reporters even suggested that they should revamp the driving test so that you drink 10 beers beforehand and see if you are still a capable driver. as if this weren't absurd enough, the conversation then turned into a debate about whether warm or cold beer made you drunker.

gotta love it here. sometimes i feel as if i'm in the midst of a grand farce.

anyhoo. the prez just named his new cabinet and 21 people have declined to accept their posts. there's one thing that i've discovered about kenyan politics in my time here: people know for sure what they don't want, but they have no idea what they do want. it makes a great story.

that's it for now. i've typed your ears off.

lunching with some tanzanians before i head to the movies to catch the latest installment of harry potter,

karen