what I love about Nairobi

One
Every time I'm about to explode with stress, frustration, overwhelm, I bump into someone I know. Or someone who's seen my work. Old friend or old schoolmate or name I've seen a dozen times on listserves and networks. Or someone I've been a fan of for a long time - like the Ugandan musician, Samite, at the Java Junction. 5 minutes of conversation and things fall back into perspective. I'm human again. Recharged by the web of connection.

Two
As soon as I get my new Bluetooth-enabled phone up and running, I can access the internet from my laptop through my cellphone account, anywhere I can pick up a cellphone connection. I'm at a whole new level of wirelessness. This is not amazing to the tech-savvy and tech-enabled population of Africa. But to me, it's the most exciting leap in my tech universe since I was yanked out of PC-world into Mac-utopia.

Three
I needed copies of my Migritude show DVDs. I asked P over coffee, if she knew where I could do it. She hooked me up to a local cybercafe. The woman there called her friend, who drove over, and picked my DVD up. Today, a day and a half later, I text him to ask for an update. They're done.

I text: Where can I pick them up? He replies: Where R U? Me: Sarit. Him: I'll be there in 7 minutes.

He shows up, with DVDs and laptop. We test them in the food court of Sarit Centre. Money exchanges hands. I walk away with my 100 DVDs - at a quarter of the price I pay to get them copied in the US.

Four
This morning, I meet B, the printer recommended by my producer to do copies of my chapbooks. I show him the original copies I use in the Bay Area, where they just run off 100 photocopies, assemble and staple for me. He shakes his head over my whited-out and handwritten in updates of my email and website. Insists that he will insert type instead. Suggests we re-design the layout to improve quality.

I say: Right now, I don't have the time to upgrade quality, I just need the books. Fast.

He shakes his head. Returns, again and again, to the design faults that he cannot bring himself to print without correcting. I'm practically begging him to just churn them OUT, as they ARE, but he will not compromise his standards. Finally, I cave in, from sheer exhaustion. Go upstairs to the cybercafe, on his insistence, to copy the original files from my flashdrive to CD, so he can work with them. Arrange to go by his River Road print shop tomorrow, to review and proof.

Nowhere else in the world has someone insisted on doing MORE work than I ask them to, for a fraction of the price I'd pay to just run off the copies at a copy shop.

woke up scared

that ohmigod WHAT have I taken on and how the hell am I going to pull it off? feeling.

3 minutes ago, at 7.23pm, I looked up from my computer monitor, and realized that it's dark. That I've been totally immersed in work for the last 3 hours, while the sky changed, and the day ended.

It's the best kind of high. The landing into the real, the solid, the doing that is the antidote to fear.

And here's the funniest thing about it. When I wrap up work in a few minutes, and go home, it's to my parents. That's still so new, so strange, it makes me laugh.

There is a huge, ripe, jackfruit in our kitchen. Overpowering in it's ready-to-eat scent - but Dad insists it isn't time to cut it yet.

who'd a thunk

that Kenya would ignite my dormant tech-geek gene? In the US, where you can rely on almost constant access to computers, working landlines, internet connections, I'm a tech phobe. I got my first cellphone years after all my peers.

Here, where you can't even count on steady electricity, much less internet connections, wireless phone gadgetry suddenly takes on a whole new appeal. For the past few days, I've been insatiably curious about how many things I can do on my phone that I've always done on my computer. I find myself checking out people's phones with avid interest, having animated conversations about Bluetooth, and the merits of Nokia vs. Samsung.

wet clothes

go with the rainy season. The majority of Kenyans have no access to washers or dryers. Clothes are washed by hand in buckets, hung to dry on lines. In the rainy season, if you’re lucky, you have a covered area where you can hang clothes, to drip into dampness over several days. Then you bring them indoors, move them around the warmest parts of the house. They rarely dry completely. You wait until they’ve lost just enough moisture to not make your skin flinch too much. You put them on, shivering, and hope your body heat will dry them out.

I’m not up for that anymore. This morning, I insisted that in the year 2007, there had to be laundromats in Nairobi, with dryers. I took all the sopping wet clothes off the lines, stuffed them into plastic Uchumi bags, dragged my mother to the nearest shopping complex.

Turns out I was wrong. The only laundromats in Nairobi are in the Central Business District – where no one lives, so I can only assume they’re used by companies and hotels. In the suburbs and residential areas, the rich have their own washers and driers (and their own generators to power them during blackouts). The poor, or the old-school / frugal / petty bourgeoisie (like my parents) deal with perpetually damp clothes – and accompanying illness - right through the rainy season.

rain insects

baffle and fascinate me. They hatch in the rain – long-bodied fragile flying beings. They cluster around lights, fragile wings churning the falling raindrops. They collapse and crawl along counters and sills. They die so quickly, so easily, you gotta wonder what they are FOR. Nevertheless, there’s something magical about them.