Nairobi, niko na moyo mseto

Paris, je t’aime has a much nicer ring to it, but for Nairobi, I have a mixed heart. Brace yourself, this is a pretty long post.

After 8 long hours of matatus and buses and matatus on Thursday, I made it to Nairobi and headed over to the Kenya Continental, which is where volunteers stay when they’re on Peace Corps business here (including medical work). I checked in to find three other volunteers at the hotel (I had just missed Nick who had been there the night before and had just returned to his site). I called Peace Corps and they told me that I could take it easy and then come in tomorrow, so I was glad to recuperate a bit. My friend "Beth" is here with limited mobility, so she had to stay in bed, but Kelly (math/science education from the group before me) and Jason (new public health volunteer) brought me to the mall (actually there are several malls in Westlands, which is a rather posh area of Nairobi, and they are all within walking distance of the hotel). We stopped first at the bookstore, and I had to stop myself from buying more than three books. Then, we went to Nakumatt (it‘s kinda like being at Wal-Mart, but a little smaller) and picked up a few things to bring back to the hotel (it‘s really hard to find Oreos outside of Nairobi) and I grabbed some candy to bring back for my students. Jason bought himself an electric hair trimmer, and it was later pointed out that he does not actually have electricity at his site. Every time we would hear it buzzing for the rest of my stay (surprisingly often, I might add), we would chuckle a bit.

When I was leaving school on Wednesday, I told some of my students that I would not be coming the next day because I had to go and see a doctor. They all expressed their condolences and some suggested that I bring them some kind of present (usually in candy form) from my trip (I didn‘t mention Nairobi, since I was worried the suggestions would increase). Then one of them stopped to make sure that I was leaving lesson notes so that they could keep working while I was away (already submitted), and I was glad to see that work ethic. Then one of my students said that I was only allowed to bring candy if I was healthy so that we could celebrate; if I was sick, then I just needed to get better. My students are really wonderful.

Anyway, we made it back to the hotel to see Beth who managed to sit up halfway when we got back. We settled on carrying out dinner from Java House, which is good comfort food. Kelly and I ran over and placed the order. While we waited, we were bombarded with previews for G.I. Joe and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. (I loved that book growing up!) We swapped stories about our schools and how overwhelming everything gets at times (Kelly‘s area somehow manages to get less rain than mine, but there is a little more water, since there is a river nearby, but water is just a big nightmare in general) while we waited for our food and then we carried it back to the hotel. Our supper was delicious (complete with a chocolate-banana milkshake), and we all hung out for a while to raise our spirits. We went to bed very full.

On Friday, Kelly, Jason and I grabbed an early breakfast at the hotel before walking to the Peace Corps office. When we were five minutes away from the office, Medical called me and asked if I was at the hotel, since they had sent a driver to pick me up. I hadn’t realized that I qualified for chauffeur service, so I apologized and explained that I was already at the office. I went in and greeted medical to talk a bit and find out how everything was going to work. Mary explained to me that she had booked me in Nairobi until Monday (I won‘t miss school, since it‘s a national holiday) so that I wouldn’t feel rushed and then we talked a bit. Poor Mary is the only Medical staff member right now (Sylvia is on vacation), so she is watching the four of us at the Continental, plus there was another situation earlier week and she has to keep tabs on the other 60 healthy volunteers in the country to make sure that they stay that way. Before leaving her office, I stepped on the scale and found that my weight has stayed steady at around 160, which is sounding pretty healthy, I think. Then I went to say hi to staff in the office, and I sought out Louis (he manages Peace Corps‘s Small Enterprise Development program and is a really remarkable guy) to see if he had my bio-gas DVDs. Louis and I are incapable of having a short conversation, so while we were discussing solar technologies, another staff member came in to collect Louis for their staff meeting and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to greet other staff members (Joseph was on leave, so I wouldn‘t have been able to see him, and Enos had traveled to visit possible sites for the next volunteers, so we missed each other this time, but I was disappointed that I didn‘t get to say hi to Antony, Tim or introduce myself to the new Country Director). I hung around the office for another 20 minutes and used the computer before heading off to my appointment.

So, after all this, I should probably explain why I’m here. Four years at MIT definitely built up a pretty high tolerance for stress and putting high demands on myself. Still, I had a few warning signs that I might need to talk to someone about some things, so I asked to come to Nairobi to sort a few things out. I talked to a nice British woman for about an hour and we discussed some strategies and things that I should work on so that I don’t burn myself out. We talked about coping mechanisms and healthy outlets, but all in all, it was a pretty short conversation, so we scheduled a follow-up appointment for October. I went back to the waiting room and called the Peace Corps driver to pick me up and take me back across Nairobi (office is only open for a half-day on Fridays, so I didn‘t get to see the rest of the staff). The traffic was pretty nasty on the way to the office (sorry, in true British fashion, I was at a “surgery“), so it took the driver an hour to come back and pick me up. I noted all the British people (and a few Germans) who came to the surgery and how few Kenyans there were. While I waited, I thought a bit about the conversation and talked to mi amigo Daniel until the driver pulled up.

I had the driver drop me off about half-way to the hotel so that I could meet up with Kelly for lunch. I had run into Tori randomly when I arrived on Thursday and we all agreed to meet for lunch, so that was nice. We ate at the Java House (you might start to notice a theme) and had a wonderful time and I had to say good-bye to Tori again, since her flight was the following evening. Then I went with Kelly to the hospital for her appointment (makes sense, since the bulk of the appointment is usually in the waiting room anyway). She had to wait when we arrived to get a short note from one doctor (that took 40 minutes) and bring it to another doctor (there was a mistake in scheduling her appointment, so that took another 30 minutes) who read the note in under one minute and said that it would be okay for her to return to her school (she was pretty sick of Nairobi after the amount of time she had been here) and then she was done. Then we had to wait an hour for the driver (Friday afternoon Nairobi traffic is hell) who was given the wrong location at the hospital by the Peace Corps office, so then we had to go find him. So that day was not exactly a model of efficiency.

Then we went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day with Beth and Jason. Kelly needed to do a little shopping before going back to site, so we ran to the mall and made a few other stops, but we were still pretty full from lunch, so we stopped at an Indian restaurant near the hotel and brought back some naan and called that dinner. When we placed the order, the waitress looked at us and said “But aren’t you going to order food???” and we replied nearly in unison “bread is food!” Then we went back to the hotel and ate together complete with Oreos for dessert (we never made it to them the night before). Kelly and Jason went to bed pretty early (Kelly had to pack and was leaving early for her bus in the morning), so I stayed and talked to Beth for a while longer before talking to my parents and then crashing. Beth had left the hospital, but since she wasn’t really mobile and just stayed in her simply furnished room all day, it really felt like she was still in the hospital, but without all the doctors (just a big bag of Tylenol).

On Saturday, I woke up a little after Kelly had left (I had had a lot of trouble falling asleep, and wound up sleeping from 3 am to 7 am), and Jason and I grabbed breakfast before heading to the Peace Corps office to take care of a few things on the computer. Another volunteer had come to visit Beth, so she got to have company all morning. Jason and I talked a lot all morning and got to know one another (I don‘t have that opportunity very often with the volunteers who stay in the Western part of the country). We came back to the hotel to meet Beth and two other volunteers to have sushi for lunch. It was a fun lunch, in spite of the fact that the conversation wandered from AIDS to concentration camps and lots of other cheerful subjects in between. The waiter moved incredibly slowly, and Beth had to leave lunch a bit early, since she had already been sitting up for an hour and needed to lie back down. After lunch we left Beth and Jason to nap, and I went to the mall.

After shopping around a little bit (I picked up another gift for my students: a couple of chemistry review books for their exams), I found a computer store and bought a small laptop. $450, or two months of Peace Corps salary. It’s a nice little machine (I‘m using it right now to type this) and I’m planning to Linux-ify it next weekend (it‘s a Windows machine and viruses are incredibly rampant here) and get it set up with a modem. I’m not sure if this will make me more productive (it‘s going to be pretty useful for things like writing exams, working on this AIDS hotline and a few other projects) or less productive (I have that pesky addiction to webcomics), but it’s nice to have this.

I stopped at a Nakumatt (I gave up on counting the number of Nakumatts and Java Houses in Westlands, but there are a lot) and found that they had Coca-cola with high-fructose syrup (i.e. American style, instead of using sugar like the rest of the world), plus it came in a can, so that was fantastic. As I walked back to the hotel, I called Mary to tell her a bit about my appointment (and to have her straighten out things with the hotel, which thought that I was checking out that morning) and the follow-up. And then I found out that I can open a whole new can of worms. Apparently at the staff meeting, she announced to the staff that I was reconsidering my decision to leave Peace Corps (I had told her as much on Friday) and she reported to me that the staff was very supportive. It wasn’t until after the call ended that I realized that I had not actually talked with the staff about my plans to leave Peace Corps (that was also why I never mentioned it on here before now), so I don’t know what kind of position this will put me in. I had told Mary about my plans in August and made sure that it was in confidence, but I guess the fact that I came to Nairobi changes confidentiality? Or something? Anyway, my cards are on the table. I had previously committed myself to leaving Peace Corps for causes related to stress at school as well as other stresses in Kenya unrelated to my community (I hope that is sufficiently vague) and now I am trying to work some things out before I commit myself to anything.

Then I arrived back to the hotel and talked to Beth and Jason a bit longer (Jason is 26 and apparently had guessed that I was older than him. For those of you keeping score at home, I‘m 23.) before taking orders for dinner and heading over to (any guesses?) Java House. I’m pretty sure we’re just addicted to the milkshakes there, but the food is pretty good too (you can actually eat lettuce without worrying about intestinal parasites). I waited for the food alone this time and while I sat there, I read the script for David Ives’ scene called Sure Thing (an absolutely hilarious scene, and I discovered the prescience of one of the lines in the script). We all turned in early, since Beth looked pretty tired and Jason was packing to return to site. Unfortunately, I was completely unable to sleep, so I tinkered with my computer a bit and wrote some emails on my phone (I‘m way behind on emails right now, actually) before I finally managed to fall asleep around 4:30.

And then I woke up at 7 am. Yuck. I said good-bye to Jason as he went for his bus and ate breakfast with Beth. She had an appointment at the hospital that morning, so she packed all of her bags (last time she went for an appointment at the hospital, they admitted her without warning and she had to stay for a week) and we talked while we waited for her taxi. I got a call from Louis saying that he was in the parking lot with my DVDs. I went out to see him and found him there in a T-shirt and jeans (it‘s so rare that we see Peace Corps staff that informally) and talked for a few minutes. Then Louis realized that Beth’s taxi was sitting there, so I went to collect Beth, and he went back home. Before Beth got in the cab, I told her that she wasn’t allowed to get readmitted to the hospital.

I ran to the mall to see if the cyber was open, but apparently it stays closed on Sundays. I walked over to the supermarket and bought some apples and Nutella for our lunch and a liter and a half of Pepsi (if I‘m going to start sleeping on my college hours, I should probably consume caffeine like I did when I was there). Right as I got back to the hotel, I got a one-word text message (those are always the worst) from Beth that said “readmitted”. I was disappointed with her for not listening to me, but then, I guess she wasn’t really in a condition to fight off all the nurses. I grabbed a taxi to the hospital and while I waited, I called Medical to request an extra day here (that means that my students will miss a day of lessons L, but otherwise, Beth will be completely alone in the hospital), which they granted. I found Beth in her hospital bed and not terribly thrilled to be there. I gave her the apples and the Nutella as well as my copy of Arabian Nights in case she wanted to read and she gave me her key so that I could go back to the hotel and collect her belongings and check her out of her room. They had some flowers at the reception, and so I asked and they let me take some for her and asked me to send their condolences.

I made it back to the hospital, but it was not during visiting hours. They know Beth pretty well at this point, so they didn’t even bother me as I went to her room. I caught her just before lunch and I stayed with her until just after dinner. I tried to find a deck of cards, so we could pass the time that way, but a lot of shops were closed since it was Sunday, so I just had to rely on conversation. We talked a lot and I tried especially hard to distract her every time the doctors or nurses came to poke her again (I don‘t envy human pin-cushions). We talked about the fact that the doctors take her blood just about every day to feed the vampire who is staying down the hall. We talked about family and friends in America (we sat next to each other on the plane when we first came to Kenya and talked about that a lot, and I found myself remembering snippets of that conversation as we talked). We talked about life in the hospital (Peace Corps staff does not really visit volunteers in the hospital, so it comes down to hoping that other volunteers will make the trek to Nairobi and visit). And we talked a bit about primates. The doctors came and gave her some pretty strong medicine just before dinner, and I was a little disappointed that she remained rather coherent and didn’t start speaking gibberish, but the meds were knocking her out and visiting hours were coming to an end, so I called a taxi.

I found the hospital vending machine and bought an apple Fanta (first time I‘ve seen that flavor, but I don‘t think that apple was meant to be a soda). My taxi driver was rather talkative, which was nice because I didn’t feel like saying much. She steered the conversation towards Christianity pretty quickly (which is very common here), which allowed her to segue to faith healing. She explained how her shoulder ailment had been cured by prayer (Pentecostal, by the sound of it). Then she started telling me about how prayer will even cure AIDS and doctors don’t actually know what they’re doing. I was pretty relieved when she dropped me off at the hotel. Then I walked down the road to the Indian hotel and had a really amazing meal there (I hadn‘t actually eaten aside from a banana, an apple and some pineapple juice for breakfast, but during dinner Beth gave me her Jell-o). I made it back to the hotel and realized that I hadn’t eaten at Java House the entire day. I managed to throw on my pajamas, but I didn’t climb under the blanket or the mosquito net before falling asleep just after 9 pm. I woke up a bit after 3 am feeling a bit chilly and rather itchy (Nairobi mosquitoes can be pretty fierce) and not feeling the least bit tired.

Today is my last day in Nairobi, so it will probably include a quick trip to Java House and maybe Nakumatt as well (Peace Corps office closes for all American and Kenyan holidays, so the office is closed today for Eid, so I can‘t head there), but the bulk of the day will be spent in the hospital. When I arrived in Nairobi, I learned that for a time, the number of volunteers who were in for medical was staying pretty consistent at 4. Now I am alone at the Kenya Continental and when I leave tomorrow, Beth will be alone at the hospital (except Beth is actually going to leave tomorrow and go back to site, since she‘ll make a miraculous recovery today). I only spent a few days here; most people were here for longer, and I can definitely understand their impatience to get back to site (the increased weight and paleness and diminished bank account are among the physical reasons). Okay, well that’s certainly a lot to read, so I’ll do the other two things that I have thoroughly enjoyed doing in Nairobi that do not happen very often at site: take a shower and put on clean clothes.

Happy last day of winter (well, I'm in the southern hemisphere, but this ain't a typical winter) and Eid Mubarak.