- I wear a skirt-sarong around the house.
- I've had malaria.
- I've hoed and planted the family shamba (field).
- I consider doing dishes with running water a luxury.
- My commute to work is on the back of a bicycle.
- Sharing a 14-person passenger van or pickup truck, a.k.a, matatu, with 20 other people and a few chickens doesn't seem abnormal.
- I buy my produce from wooden stalls by the road or off of sheets of plastic laid on the ground.
- I buy clothes second-hand, from wooden stalls by the road or off sheets of plastic laid on the ground.
- I don’t expect the electricity or water to work for 24 hours straight, and if it does, I’m surprised.
- I expect the Internet at the office to work during the morning, and that’s about it.
- I share one stapler with eight coworkers.
- I don’t tip.
- I don’t expect mixed drinks to have ice.
- The family rooster is my alarm clock.
- I'm not in the least surprised when a new government corruption story breaks.
- I can use a squat toilet like a pro.
- I pray before and after meetings, even though I don’t really understand when it’s in Swahili.
- It’s not time to go to sleep until the mosquito net is up.
- I say “Ei!” when surprised by something, as other interns have pointed out.
- Excessive use of “By the way…” no longer seems excessive.
- I’m starting to forget what lettuce, celery, broccoli, asparagus, spinach, radicchio, peaches, plums, berries, blue cheese, Parmesan cheese, string cheese, actually any decent cheese, soup, drip coffee, espresso, sandwiches, tuna, salmon, etc. etc. etc. taste like. Actually that’s a lie, I think about it all the time. I hear there’s sushi in Nairobi. It may be worth the 10 hour bus trip.
- Speaking of which, nobody I know here has a car, save Julius and George my go-to taxi drivers whom I call for a ride after dark.
- I boil or UV treat all drinking water.
- I compost or burn my trash (aerosol cans are fun!)
- When I go into a restaurant, the first thing I look for is the sink to wash my hands before eating.
- I’m on a wedding planning committee for a co-worker.
- I don’t necessarily think someone is necessarily well off if the have house help.
- I eat dinner at 8:30 or 9:00 p.m.
- I don’t expect toilets to actually flush properly.
- I lock my windows shut after dark even though it’s 85 degrees in my bedroom.
- I agree that soccer, rugby and cross-country are really the only sports worth watching.
- I lock the front door using padlock.
- I call corn "maize," the trunk the "boot" and use U.K. spelling (colour, centre, etc.)
- If someone says that some is "black," I know that it means they have really dark skin, as opposed to being "brown." (My host mom is brown, my host dad is black.)
- I know that the first ingredient in any good Kenyan meal is cooking fat.
- I am pretty sure that reggae, regatone, hip-hop, church music, and African music (which sounds a lot like Latin music) are the only musical genres that exist. Oh, and Daniel’s Kenny Loggins on his Blackberry. My iPod was stolen the third week I was here, still working on getting it back… hah!
Why I’m clearly still a mzungu, besides the obvious difference of being a different color than everyone else:
- I prefer the office's Western toilet to the pit latrine (I swear to God, some of my coworkers, who seem completely Western otherwise, use the outdoor office outhouse instead of using the toilet inside).
- I don’t go to church every Sunday.
- I am dying to open my window after dark.
- I don’t love with sukuma wiki, the bitter greens that are the staple vegetable here.
- I am of the opinion that the chocolate here sucks--Cadbury’s is to blame there.
- My Swahili is not the best and I can only say Hello in Luhya – Mrembe.
- I cannot walk in heels on the dirt roads like all the women do.
- I will never understand this country’s infatuation with dubbed Mexican soap operas or World Wide Wrestling Federation Smackdown.
1 comment:
Love the list! And I hope a little of that garden has some lettuce planted now!
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