Arrival

For the past few weeks, I had been having a mental disconnect between how I was feeling and the reality of my situation. I knew that eventually I would be in Africa, but it hadn’t really hit me until I finally got on the plane. The flights were fairly uneventful. Nobody sat next to me on any of my three flights, which was bittersweet because it gave me a chance to stretch my lanky frame out over two entire seats, but getting to meet new people is one of the few perks I enjoy about flying. My favorite game to play with the people sitting next to me on planes is something I like to call Spy. Basically it involves inventing an airtight background about myself and trying to maintain it as long as possible. For example, last time I flew I convinced a housewife from Ohio that I was 25 years old and that I had just opened up a coffee shop in Raleigh called The Bean Machine with my gay partner. The coffee shop had open mic nights and live jazz on Friday nights and everyone complimented our Cuban sandwiches and orange cranberry muffins. Good times.

All of the movies were playing sucked (Nights in Rodanthe, Eagle Eye, The Duchess…you get the idea) so I tried reading and listening to the iPod. I started reading Crime and Punishment and sections of my tropical medicine book. The look in the flight attendant’s eyes was priceless when she asked if I wanted anything to drink and glanced down at the horrific pictures on the page that I had flipped open in the tropical medicine book. She didn’t really make eye contact with me after that. There were about two solid hours of turbulence which started when we were passing over Newfoundland. The captain came over the intercom and told us that nobody told her to expect turbulence. That’s it. That was a little disconcerting but also funny in a weird way. When I used to pilot small planes, I was used to bobbing around like a cork in the ocean when I would hit turbulence. That never really bothered me because I was in control and I had other things to concentrate on. But when you’re sitting on a plane as a passenger, it’s different. Thankfully, the Xanax I had beforehand really took the edge off. Xanax: Better living through chemistry.

I’ve got to say one thing about Swiss Air, though: They take their in-flight meals very seriously. The cheese and chocolate were honestly among the best I’ve had in my life, but I guess if you have a reputation to uphold, you’re not going to skimp out on the cheap stuff. But the coolest part……wait for it……REAL METAL SILVERWARE!!! I know!!! It’s a seemingly trivial thing, but it made me feel human and civilized on a flight again after such a long time. The arrival into Kenya was also pretty uneventful. Like with the Spy game, I had a background story lined up for the Visa agents. Apparently, if you tell them you’re volunteering, they’ll try to make you get a special, more expensive Visa, which isn’t necessary since technically this is a “volunteer vacation.” I had an answer planned for every imaginable situation. I imagined the exchange going down something like this:

Visa guy: What is your purpose in Kenya?
Me: I’m on vacation
Visa guy: You’re here for one month?
Me: Yes, 2 weeks in Mombosa and 2 weeks in Nairobi, with a 3 day safari in between.
Visa guy: What is this address you listed here? Who are Fadhili Helpers?
Me: They’re a cultural exchange program that coordinates home stays for visitors.
Visa guy: What are you doing with that stethoscope?
Me: It’s a gift for my host mother. She’s a nurse.
Visa guy: <*Stamp*> Have a nice stay in Kenya!

Of course, in reality, not a word was spoken between him and I except for “$50 please.” I was pissed because I found out that the Yellow Fever vaccination is no longer a requirement to enter the country. Thanks, CDC website, you just lost me $168. I went through customs without a hitch and saw a sign with my name on it and a small group waiting for me. Whenever I departed planes in the past, I would always get a little jealous of the people who had drivers waiting for them. I was greeted by Cleo and Mike, two guys who worked for Fadhili Helpers, the Kenyan volunteer organization I would be working with, and three volunteers who had already been in-country for two weeks. The other volunteers (Jim from High Point, NC, Erin from Pennsylvania, and Ingrid from Ontario) were my age, give or take a year, and they were all teaching in orphanages.

We dropped by a roadside restaurant and grabbed a quick bite to eat. The food was good, plentiful, and best of all, cheap; my entire meal cost under $2. We were killing time before picking up another volunteer who was arriving at a later flight. We were watching the news when they announced that a major shopping center in downtown Nairobi had caught fire. Thirty-something people were said to be missing. As I watched the painfully inept firefighting response on TV, I thought about how lucky I was to have access to and be part of such a well-run emergency services system back in the States.

After eating, we dropped back by the airport with our “Welcome Sara Johnson!” sign, taking bets on what she looked like, how old she would be, etc. to pass the time. She finally arrived and we drove to a bar called Annie Oakley’s to say goodbye to a volunteer who was leaving the next day. Everyone who we met at the bar was incredibly warm and friendly to us, both the volunteers and Kenyans. You could sense the strong camaraderie among the volunteers, most of who had already been here for several months and planned on staying a few more. I could tell that this month would fly by.

You know how they say that if you can drive in NYC, you can drive anywhere in the world? Bullshit. I challenge the best cabbie in New York to last 10 minutes in Nairobi traffic without defecating themselves and balling up in the fetal position in their backseat. The only other place I can think of that compares to the traffic here is New Delhi. It’s total madness, but also fun to be a part of. On the way to our temporary residence, Cleo gave us each a little care package containing toilet paper and bottled water, essentials for weak-stomached Westerners in Kenya. I’m now the proud owner of 4 rolls of toilet paper. Let’s pray I won’t be needing all of it.

Driving along the bumpy roads and glancing out the window left no doubt that I was, in fact, in Africa. There were small roadside shacks selling fruits and cigarettes, chickens running around and pecking at the ground, the smell of smoke in the air, and lots of corrugated steel and hand-painted signs. We even saw zebras grazing by the highway, since the Nairobi National Park extends up to the road. I noticed there was no fence to keep them out of the highway, and I got to wondering if zebra run out in front of cars the same way deer do in the states.

A little after midnight, Sara and I arrived at our temporary lodgings, the place where we would be staying before our orientation on February 2nd. We said goodbye to our new friends and dragged our bags upstairs. Our new home was the house of a woman named Rachael, a salon owner who lives with her adorable 2 year old daughter (anyone who knows me knows how I’m not really a fan of little kids, but it was impossible not to like her) and 16 year old son. Sara and I would be sharing a room with a Brit named Martin, who looks just like Christian Bale when he had the beard in Rescue Dawn. He gave us tips about what to expect, how to find our way about, and other stuff that was good to know. He also told us crazy stories about his travels prior to coming to Kenya. Over the past 6 months, he had lived in China, Thailand, all over South America, and with the Massai out in the African Serengeti. With the Massai, he had to sleep with a spear under his bed because of the danger of hyena attacks in the night. In China, he spent a month in a monastery where everyone was absolutely silent for 23 hours out of the day, but at around noon, a gong would sound and they could laugh, joke, shout, and talk for exactly one hour before reverting back to silence. I love learning random stuff like that from people during my travels.

Sara and I rigged up our mosquito nets before collapsing into bed after our long journeys. Besides sleeping under mosquito netting, there were many other small things to get used to. For example, to turn off the sink faucet, you have to close it all the way, open it again a half turn, and then close it fully again for all the water to stop flowing. To flush the toilet, you need to flush once, where invariably nothing happens, and then flush again to release a torrent of water that would make the Niagara Falls jealous. Both these idiosyncrasies have occurred every time without fail since I’ve been here, and I’m still trying to figure out the mechanics behind them. I’ve got to get used to only having cold water and brushing my teeth using only bottled water. I know one of these days I’m going to slip and order a drink with ice, or use tap water to rinse my mouth. Then I’m sure that stockpile of toilet paper will come in handy.

I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked, due to a combination of excitement and the sounds of buzzing mosquitoes probing the netting for vulnerabilities. When I finally got around to passing out, I was rudely awaken by roosters and some loud bird that sounded like a goat being raped. There was also the sound of Morning Prayer off in the distance, a reminder that while Nairobi’s Muslim population was the minority, it was sizable. Deciding that going back to sleep would be futile, I got up to take a shower. I use the word “shower” loosely. There was no warm water, only a trickle coming from the showerhead, and when I tried to turn the hot water faucet on, water started coming out…of the warm water faucet in the sink! That’s the last thing I was expecting to happen. I started panicking because the sink faucet was already turned off and the sink was about to overflow. I tried turning every combination of knob and dial that I could, praying that I wouldn’t flood the bathroom on my first day. Eventually, somehow, the water stopped, and I could continue to pour cold water over myself from a water pitcher. And thus began my first day in Kenya.

Getting My Ducks in a Row

I think I'm ready to go. I've said my goodbyes, gotten my expensive immunizations, and have started packing. Here is a quick rundown of what I'm taking:

-4 t-shirts
-2 pairs of pants
-6 pairs of boxers and socks
-2 long-sleeve shirts
-One "nice" outfit for formal events, such as church. I'm atheist, but I've heard that Kenyan church services are unlike anything else in the world, so I'm not going to miss out on that.
-iPod (thanks for letting me borrow it Nasir!)
-Pocket knife
-Flashlight
-Toiletries
-Sunscreen. Yes, brown people can sunburn too!
-Mosquito repellent
-Medications, both OTC stuff and prescription malaria meds
-Stethoscope. This is a nice spendy one and I really hope I don't lose it
-Medical pocket field guide
-Pens and a journal
-Laptop. I might regret taking this later on. We'll see.
-Power adapter
-Some candy and small gifts for my host family
-Passport
-A few books:
*Crime and Punishment
*A Handmaiden's Tale
*US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook. This book is perfect for what I'll be doing. In addition to what you'd expect to be in there (e.g. trauma, how to suture wounds, etc.), it also covers dental care, laboratory techniques, veterinary medicine, epidemiology, sanitation...there are few topics this field manual doesn't touch on. It covers how to treat patients presenting with exotic diseases in settings where little or no additional medical support is available. Did you know you can cure a parasitic worm infection by ingesting a cigarette? Neither did I, but I do now. Good stuff.
*Illustrated Lecture Notes on Tropical Medicine. This book is 457 pages of raw horror, but I'm sure it will come in handy. I just pray that I don't get the whateverthehellthatisOMGisthehumanbodyreallycapableofproducingthatmuchpus infection thats on page 243...

And thats about it. Its all I really need. Actually, its probably more than I need, but if I'm there for a month, I feel like I can splurge a little. It should all fit snuggly into one bag. Traveling light is the only way to travel. I'm leaving on Tuesday afternoon and should be arriving in Nairobi at 7 PM local time the next day. I'll be going from RDU to Washington-Dulles, from Dulles to Zurich, and then finally from Zurich to Nairobi. If things go as planned, my next post will be from Kenya. Wish me luck!

On Travel

I originally never planned on going to Kenya. This trip was all very last minute. I originally planned on backpacking around India for 6 weeks or so. But then the terrorist events in Mumbai went down in mid-November and my parents weren't comfortable with me traveling to an "unsafe place." Apparently, Sub-Saharan Africa falls under my parents' list of "safe places."

I feel like I've racked up a fairly respectable travel resume for someone my age. World travel is something I've been fortunate enough to have been exposed to my entire life. The very first memory I can recall is jumping up and down on a hotel room in Singapore, screaming for rice ice cream. Travel is a need that I have, and I start feeling antsy and go into travel withdrawal after sticking around one place for too long. I skipped my high school proms so I could use the money I saved to backpack around Montreal and Quebec City for a week after graduation. I've been to over a dozen different countries so far, almost always traveling alone. But I don't know if any of my travel experiences thus far can prepare me for Africa.

African countries seem more "foreign" to me than other foreign countries, if that makes any sense. I mean, when I was backpacking around Europe, at times it would feel like I was trekking around a larger and more detailed version of Epcot Center's World Showcase; things felt very sterile and safe and well manicured, almost like the cartoony fairytale version of Europe instead of Europe Proper. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it left me wanting a bit more, I don't know what, but...something. It was great seeing historic cathedrals and walking down cobblestone lanes, looking up and seeing half-timbered houses adorned with flowerboxes in the windows. Don't get me wrong, I loved it all and I would travel to Europe again in a heartbeat. But it felt too "clean" and accessible.

I liked smelling the dust and kerosene when I went to India. I enjoyed haggling with locals in Istanbul, trying to use hand gestures and bits of German and English to get a better deal on a Rolex knockoff. Most of the world doesn't live the lifestyle Americans and Western Europeans do, and thats what I guess I want to experience. I want to travel somewhere where my first thought upon waking up is "Hey. I'm definitely not in America right now. Cool."

If you've done any amount of travel, I'm sure you know by now that there are two general types of people you'll encounter: Tourists and "Travelers."

Tourists: Often seen traveling in herds, this species is easily recognized by the ubiquitous camera hanging around their fat, pink necks and a wardrobe as loud as their voices. Their main habitat are hotel rooms, but they can often be found in enormous buses with tinted windows, staring gape-jawed at and totally insulated from the outside world. Americanus touristians won't attempt to pronounce anything thats not a brand name, travels halfway around the world to eat at Subways (Note: I'm not knocking Subway. Its cheap and good and sometimes thats all you can afford and/or feel like eating. But you know what I'm trying to say...), and shuffle back onto their buses after taking pictures of the world-famous monument/church/artwork/birdhouse so that they can be transported in their air-conditioned buses to the next attraction. They then come back home and are now authorized to say "Yeah, I've been to Venice. They don't have many public bathrooms over there." To Americanus touristians, travel resembles a big game hunting trip; you go hop on a plane, fly to a foreign land, track down you 'game' (tourist sites), 'shoot' the game using film instead of bullets, and fly back. Mission Accomplished. Don't be a Tourist!!

"Travelers": At first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this group. And I'll be the first to admit that I used to *gasp* be one myself. This type is mainly seen around youth hostels, carrying everything they need in their North Face backpacks. They are often trying to "find themselves" and you may find them sporting dreadlocks and Birkenstocks, although a lot of the times they come from WASPy Republican backgrounds and will live off their trust fund when they get back home and grow up to be just like their parents, complaining about the capital gains tax and the black family that moved in next door. Trustifarians. Anyways.... This group takes "When in Rome" to the extreme and looks down on you if you do anything slightly "touristy," such as washing. They'll talk your ear off and tell you about how they want to find "the back door to the country, man, really live like the locals, ya know?" They think that they are privy to secret locations and events that "those tourists" don't know about yet and haven't "spoiled." The funny thing, though, is that they all clutch the same Lonely Planet or Rough Guides, meaning that they all end up in the same locations and doing the same thing. They are self-important and sanctimonious, and they fail to realize that they are just another manifestation of mass tourism, no better (or worse, for that matter) than the "tourists" they so despise. They are the hipsters of the travel world and they piss me off. Don't be a "traveler!"

Look, I realize that I've painted caricatures, but please try to find a happy middle ground and just don't be "that guy." You know the type I'm talking about. Yes. "That guy." He sucks.

Alright, time to get packing.

The Africa Problem

Its strange to think that a little over two weeks ago, I, like most Americans, would have trouble identifying Kenya on a map of Africa. There is a lot of baggage associated with that continent. Uttering the word "Africa" conjures up images of stampeding gazelles, rampant poverty and corruption, and a place where a 13 year old kid is more likely to get an AK-47 for his birthday than an iPod. We hear about a land where people made of little more than bone, skin, and sinew endlessly teeter on the brink of death, shuffling from one refuge camp to the next, totally reliant on humanitarian aid handouts for survival.

Over here, it seems commonplace to discuss Africa as one homogeneous clusterfuck rather than a complex continent with colorful histories and cultures. I have to admit, I'm guilty of not knowing as much as I would like to about African politics, culture and history.

Hell, I'll be honest: I know next to nothing.

I took 'World' History in high school hoping I would learn a thing or two about Africa, since it was only given an obligatory cursory treatment in middle and elementary school, just so they could point and say "Hey! See, look! We covered African History! Its Chapter 15." Unfortunately, Africa got glossed over once again and the class basically turned out to be European and American History Lite, or Check Out How Much Ass White People Kick. Kind of like how the History Channel never shows anything about the Middle Ages and always has a total hard-on for Hitler. But thats a rant for another post...

I try to keep up with world events, but as I try to tease apart the confusing knot of African history and politics, all I'm left with are threads of knowledge that seem to bear no relevance to the original tangle. I'm going in this trip with an open mind. I'm going to do the whole "When in Rome" thing, which I've always done, but I'm going to try to get more out of it this time around. I realize that I might be the only American some Kenyans will ever meet, and that sometimes my work may be diplomatic as well as medical. I want people to realize that most Americans are not fat lazy retards who think anybody can understand English if, gosh darnit!, its spoken slowly, loudly, and condescendingly enough. Well, at least after today I won't have to apologize about George Bush being in office!

I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I go, so I don't make any major faux pas when I get over there and make a total ass of myself. But isn't that all I can realistically do and hope for? I realize I'm going to make mistakes there and they'll laugh about it and so will I and we'll have a nice Folger's Moment together. But if I'm going to be stumbling through a cultural minefield, I'd feel more comfortable giving it a quick sweep with a minesweeper beforehand. My "minesweeper" for this trip is Kenya - Culture Smart!: A Quick Guide to Customs and Etiquette (http://www.amazon.com/Kenya-Culture-Smart-customs-etiquette/dp/1857333497). I read the whole thing while sitting at Border's (what can I say, I'm cheap) and I'm very very glad I did.

Armed with this information, my flexible and laid-back attitude, and an open mind, I think I'll be just fine. At least now I'll be able to point out where I am on an African map.