We are halfway the internship, which implies that one third of the total adventure already passed. Just passed? No, it has flown, although we need to report a few signals of homesickness. Tip: don’t try and eat choco pasta based on hazelnuts here in Kenya. Bekes!
In the meantime my visit has been reduced by one. My sister is currently flying back home. My father has traveled to the coast and I will be joining him this weekend.
Instead of enlisting some of my new impressions in bullets once again, I stick to a few events this time.
Pole. Or ‘sorry’. This word is being used A LOT. I trip on the street, two people behind me repeatedly say ‘Oh, I am so sorry’; I have a cold, likewise; I am in a traffic jam, ditto. Very odd. Why would they have to apologize for me being ill or for me being clumsy? But, words are not just words and that is the tricky part of being abroad. The same words exist, but the meaning or the connotation that is given to these words can differ so much! Anyway, I did a little research and it seems this Kenyan pole is an outing of their empathic mind/ character. It is thus more something like ‘oh, I am sorry you got hurt while tripping; I am sorry you feel lousy because of that cold; I sympathise with you being stuck in traffic. Interesting!
Last Thursday (August, 26th) I got stuck in a traffic jam (my second one upon arrival). This time they had closed one of the main avenues at noon due to the festivities of the following day (promulgation of the new Constitution). BEFORE the usual evening traffic had started….
So while we are in the bus it is getting darker. Police is (probably) busy on giving contradictory orders. Civilians start arranging traffic as well. The sight was endearing. So I could not help myself laughing out loud. My neighbor had the same reaction and we started to talk. He surprised me actually. Twice. First he emphasized the problem of the Kenyan centralized transport project. He wondered why everything has to be brought back to town, why there are no interconnecting roads between suburb towns. It is only here that I have fully grasped the importance of decentralizing in Africa. Currently it is not being implemented (on any level), so for one person to have such a firm idea on this… waw. Secondly he mentioned the ecological aspect of this system. Was I hearing correctly? Oh, yeah. On the Matatu there was a Kenyan guy who discussed with me global warming… This jam was not so bad after all!
