Febraury 17

Yesterday’s Matatu experience still ranks #1 on my all time surreal and unsafe experience lists, but after today each list has a close second place (although from separate events).

I missed the Matatu back to Maasailand yesterday (although it wasn’t really my fault). So I wound up going out with my host brother and his cousin and friends. My host brother, Alfred, is 19 and as nice as can be, but his friends are a little shady, his cousin included. Alfred kept reminding me to keep my wallet safe. “My friends are nice, but they’re hustlers y’know,” he would say. I only had two beers, so as to keep my wits, but I played the role of rich whitey well buying them several pitchers ($2 a piece). I also paid some of their cover charges at the bar/club we went to to watch the Man U – Arsenal FA cup showdown (what happened there, Dustin?).

So we all got along well … perhaps too well. Around 1am, I hit a wall and discovered they were planning on all-nighting. In my youth, I might have been able to do it, but no longer. I’m also sensitive about weakening my system with all the diseases supposedly around. The club was in the basement of a hotel, so I asked about rooms … $13 for a sweet with two bedrooms and a living room. I took one bedroom, and Alfred the other. I locked my door, but left the door to the sweet open in case his friends wanted to crash on the floor there later.
Around 5am I hear a knock on my door. “Raf … RAF … open up.” It was the cousin Emmanuel.
I groggily open up to see he’s with a woman. “No way am I being sexiled now,” I’m thinking, but I respond “what do you want?”
“She’s for you.” He says as he turns to her and says, “go in there with the Mazungu [white person].”
I kid you not, he actually brought a girl for me. Now Emmanuel’s not a pimp, and she wasn’t a prostitute. I think it was just a thank-you gift for treating him well all night.
What is proper etiquette in this situation? On one hand I want to say, “What the hell are you thinking?” But he just thought he was doing me a favor (and she was either doing him a favor, or just wanted to sleep with a white man … which is not uncommon here I hear). So I just told them I was tired and going back to bed. They got the message.
As I shut and locked the door and laid back to bed I stayed awake for another 10 minutes simple shaking my head and giggling. So Surreal.



The #2 on my unsafe list was how me and Alfred got home. There are no matatus on Sunday to Maasailand. I wanted to walk the few hours (what else is there to do Sunday morning), but we ended up taking a dirt-bike taxi … one of them. Even though it probably was more safe than the Matatu, I was far more afraid. Three people on one bike with no helmets cruising along a bumpy African road. My eyes were tearing from the wind in my face, but I could have easily been crying out of fear haha.

[I have no choice whether to do the Matatu again or not, but I’m never doing the dirt-bike taxi again. And neither should you kids reading at home!]