"good times."

orientation is being held on the outskirts (I think) of nairobi. we’re at a facility (the mary ward center) run by nuns, who are very nice, quiet and excellent cooks. there is religious iconography everywhere and the “good times” bible was sitting on the desk in my room. I’m not sure who named the “good times” bible but I question whether or not they’ve actually read the bible. as I recall, not such good times.

christianity is definitely one of the most obvious relics of colonialism. and while the “good times” bible and the cruxified jesus’ catch me a little off guard, I do love the tea. having tea twice a day is lovely. if I weren’t constantly wearing my orange chaco sandals and my stomach weren’t making strange alarming gurgling noises I might almost feel classy. almost.

twelve hours.

getting to nairobi was a journey. boston to london, twelve hours in london, london to nairobi. from boston to london I sat next to a chill guy from australia. he’d just completed a regatta in nova scotia and accused me of giving him poisoned gum. he was on his way to visit family in the UK and sportingly explored london with me for a few hours. thanks sean.

I met up with josué in the afternoon. he took me to a pub for beer, fish and chips. classic london, I’m told. thanks josué.

twelve hours in london and I figured out the tube, saw buckingham palace, big ben, london bridge, parliament, westminster abbey and loads more old stuff, drank loads of coffee, ate brit food and walked til I thought my legs would fall off. not too bad.

airport mosquitoes.

a mosquito landed on me in the nairobi airport. that mosquito elicited a what-the-hell-am-I-doing-in-africa response in my brain. alaskan mosquitoes are annoying as hell but they don’t make you sick. then I realized neither do the mosquitoes in nairobi. I still beat that sucker to a pulp. and irrationally feared I’d already contracted malaria.