way to go, dumb

i'm an idiot. ok, so i needed to go use the internet and was feeling anxious and needed out of the orphanage. so i walk to makuyu to catch the matatu to kenol to internet it up. and i'm stressed because i only have 1,000 shillings - the equivalent of 8 bucks, but a lot of money here. the ride to kenol is 30 shillings. i ate a full lunch yesterday for 25 shillings. so the matatu operator comes up and is all "get in, get in" and im all "do you have change for 1,000 shillings?" and he calls his friend over and is like, here, give it to this guy, he'll get change for you. and something in me was kind of like "maybe this isn't a good idea" but i did it anyway, because i was being stared at by EVERYONE, and honestly, in my experience, the people in this small village are good people. but i'm always effing being stared at and laughed at. if i've learned anything in kenya it's how to essentially be the butt of a joke i don't understand. and so duder runs off to get change with my 1,000 shillings. and then i realize, woah, this guy isn't the matatu operator AT ALL, it's just some random DRUNK dude hanging out at the matatu stand. and i just gave my money to his friend to make change for me. shit. all the while i'm just being stared and laughed at. so i wait and wait. and drunk guy number 1 is like "he's not coming back", and i'm just thinking i can't go anywhere if he doesn't come back, so i may as well wait it out. and everyong is kind of looking around for him, and i try to talk to these girls who are about my age, asking them if they think he'll come back, and they say they think he will. and so i can't tell if the drunk guy is messing with me, i don't know how to read kenyans. but for some reason i felt like there are all these people here who saw this and they somehow made me feel like he would come back. after ten minutes or so, he came back. as he is walking i realize that he himself is quite drunk, too. what the hell morgan?! anyhow, i gave him 100 shillings for making change for me/for coming back and being a good person - which the actual matatu operator could have done free of charge. anyway, it's actually pretty surprising he came back at all - being that he was wasted at 3 PM and clearly doesn't have any kind of stable job, and he could have easily just ran away with this large bill. but really, people here, in this small village, are good people. emily left her wallet on a matatu and someone ran after her to give it to her. anna came back from thika after dark and these guys approached her, at first scaring the crap out of her, to help her get to the orphanage safely. it doesn't mean i should be overly trusting, and that was really dumb, but it's also refreshing. it's easy to become cynical, when people are constantly asking you for money or your shoes or a soda or the mandazi you are eating, or trying to charge you way too much for a piece of fruit or matatu ride. it's easy to feel like a target, because people here really do think we white people have money trees in our back yards and are just rich rich rich. which, relatively, we are. anyhow, that guy could have taken advantage of my overall dumb white girl ness and he didn't.

on the positive side, we are having a typhoid outbreak at the orphanage, and i just returned from the clinic, getting my blood tested to see if i have it, since i'm feeling quite cold-ish. i'll return after lunch to see if i can get the results. who knows if i'll get them? i waited all freaking morning just to get my blood drawn. these kenyans are so good at waiting. another thing i've learned how to do is be patient, to "just wait". "just wait" is a phrase i hear quite often. efficiency is not a priority on anyone's list here. it seriously just isn't a thing that anyone cares about. you stand in one line to get a card, stand in another line to talk to a nurse, stand in another line to pay, stand in another line to get the lab work done, then stand in line to wait for the results, and then stand in line to talk to the doctor again about your results, and then stand in line for your medication. anyhow, it will be much cheaper to deal with here than at home, whatever is wrong with me.

we went to lake naivaisha/hell's gate national park for a little vacation this past weekend. i got to ride a rented bike through a park with zebras! it was so cool. the park was just breathtakingly beautiful. i took pictures, but they surely don't capture it. on the way there, a old woman got on the bus and she had chapati and soda pop, which she started to feed to the toddler sitting next to me on her mother's lap. and it's just interesting, that this woman starts to feed this unknown child chapati and soda pop and the mom doesn't care that this old woman she doesn't know is feeding her child. that would NEVER fly at home.