Stories of late….
Security guards trying to arrest me in the park. I was cycling along quite happily taking my bike to the exhibition stand that I was working on, when out of nowhere two guards tried to pull me off my bike. “Come with us, we are arresting you! You are not allowed to cycle in the park.” My response, “hahahaha, errrrrrrrrrrr no?!” They blatantly wanted a bribe, but after my rather direct shun they gave up pretty quickly. The exhibition was not that successful, however I did meet the Kenyan Prime Minister’s sister very briefly which was not expected, she works for an NGO here and somehow my organisation is connected to her, giving bikes or something.
This week I finally feel I have grown my Afrikan balls and started to fight back against the fuckers that challenge me to the game of chicken on my way to work. One man saw me coming a mile off and started shouting and waving his arms in the middle of the road. I wasn’t in the best mood, so I shouted back, “ You don’t want to play this game cos I’m going to keep cycling straight at you. I’d move…. I’D FUCKING MOVE!” At the last minute he dived out of the way, cursing me. A lady at the side of the road was laughing so hard. 1-0 Mzungu V’s African.
I am currently having a little dance party in the rooftop bar, its 5.27pm Thursday and after 7 days of not sleeping…. LAST NIGHT I SLEPT, 7 hours straight…it’s a record. I feel so good; its amazing what sleep can do for you, and 2 Coronas.
I have made a lovely friend Ali, he loves to play pool so twice now I have challenged him and twice I have lost…. I now owe him two dinners, lucky for me he doesn’t drink! (im just going to keep playing double or quits until I win!)
Also hope to play squash this week, with what sounds like some very serious players, finally I might get my ass kicked and start improving my game again. First I need to find myself a pair of shorts cos I am sure it’s going to be SUPER hot playing squash here.
On Friday night I was meant to take it easy as I had a 5.30am start on Saturday, however that did not quite go to plan as the resident DJ at the rooftop bar started playing music loud. One too many drinks later I was definitely drunk and dancing a lot! Needless to say I was the last to leave the bar and only got to my room at around 2am!
The 5.30am start was not that bad actually, I woke up about 2mins before my alarm, had a shower, picked up my breakfast and headed for the matatu. At 6.15am I started consuming the coroner and red bull that I had planned for breakfast, I was the happiest person in the vehicle and although later on in the day I was a little tired, the killer hangover I had expected never came! I went to Kakamega forest with the Finnish girls I had made friends with in the hotel and also a couple of German boys. The forest itself was quite disappointing but then maybe I have been spoilt by the recent visit to the Amazon. We did see at least 4 different kinds of monkey, some kind of deer and lots of fungus. But actually we entertained ourselves by being stupid, playing with seeds and twigs we found on the ground.
Saturday night we all went to the German boys house and had a gathering before heading out to a house party for Halloween. It was full of USA PeaceCorps, it was both ok and kinda weird. To get there I got on a picky picky (motorbike taxi) and headed for the slums, at one point the driver got totally lost so we had to turn round and head back up the hill. Naturally the bike couldn’t carry all 3 of us, so Kiki (my friend) had to get off and we tried to head back up, the bike sliding around on the dirt road, at one point my legs went straight out as I thought that was it and I was coming off, thankfully I made it to the party in one piece.
I’m slightly torn at the minute about the work I am doing, I have completed two paintings shown here and I am happy that I am now about to create Kisumu’s first tourist map, which is pretty cool really, better make it good. However after showing several people my website, I feel that I maybe being poached to other organisations. I am off to an Art School on Thursday to check it out and may go to an organisation out of Kisumu where all sorts of arts are being created to help women earn a living, I feel this maybe a place that can utilise my skills more. So watch this space. (Daniel please don’t be mad at me) :o
