Our Plumber is an Idiot Have you thought seriously about living without running water for a few days? Water disruptions are a pretty normal occurance in Kakamega and I have endured a few multi-day affairs. Your heart sinks if the water stops Friday evening - it is highly unlikely that anyone will bother to fix the problem until Monday morning. Your only hope is if the problem is global enough to affect someone Important such the District Commissioner or the local Member of Parliament - in which case the problem will be fixed quickly (heavy sigh). What to do? Well if you have some loot you want to fix yourself a reservoir tank - the bigger, the better. And of course, knowing how water flows you ideally want your tank above the level of your house - a pump-free solution! You would also want a competent plumber to rig things up for you.
Now granted, building a water tower is a bit beyond the scope of normal plumbing activities and I don't expect a plumber to be a civil engineer. However, I do expect a plumber to know that water is f**king heavy and some raggedy-assed scrap metal welded together might not properly support a 500 liter reservoir tank. The gag above played out the first time they tried to fill the tank (of course..). I got a frantic call at work from our house-keeper who thought the tank was going to collapse right into our house - an event that might have gotten us onto the evening news.
Moral: Good tradespeople are as hard to find here as anywhere else…if you find one, be very, very nice to them.
White Sand In Mombassa/Black Tie in Nairobi Good grief…even by blogging standards I have been slack recently. What have I been up to? Well, we went to Mombassa on the coast for the Christmas break. I had been told so many conflicting things about Mombassa that I wasn't sure what to expect. Let me confirm one thing - it is hot there (think Florida in high summer without air conditioning). Otherwise, my experience of Mombassa was sharp contrasts. We were staying at an all-inclusive resort with a bunch of German civil servants (not all Germans or Civil servants of course - but I'm hoping you can visualize - think over-designed prescription eyewear).
The beach was nice:
I hate sounding so jaded because for many average Kenyans, going to Mombassa as a tourist is a dream, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity- they might manage it on their Honeymoon but it is a big deal. We brought a few Kakamegan friends with us on the trip (all of whom had not flown in an airplane before) and it was fun just watching them enjoy a few perks.
The real city of Mombassa is actually a Muslim dominated town - the Kakamegans who were traveling with us felt as much tourists as we musungo did, I think.
The one thing I did not like about Mombassa is that I lost the slightly elevated status I enjoyed in Kakamega and turned in to that dreaded character - a tourist. In Kakamega I am a curiosity with an unsavory association (colonialism) balanced out by an attractive association (people assume that I am rich). These associations skew my interactions with people but I have never really felt like a tourist (a freak, occasionally).
Our holiday ended with a trip to Nairobi. We have been very kindly invited to a black tie new years event at Muthaiga Country Club http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muthaiga_Country_Club . Muthaiga is the grandest of sports clubs in Kenya and I had been looking forward to this event for some time. In fact, I actually had a suit made for me Kakamega by my tailor, Julian:
(Note: I have discovered that I can have a suit hand-sewed for about $20 Cdn + the cost of the wool…so I have been indulging. Here is a more casual summer suit Julian made for me:
I am working up the courage to ask for something with a more African styling, but the odds of looking like a dork in such clothes are very high.
I digress.
The sports club (which I'm told is featured in Out Of Africa) is spectacularly preserved and so is the crowd. Were it not for a few native Africans were enjoying the party (as opposed to the rest, who merely serve it) , it would have been possible to imagine the empire was not lost. I am fascinated to be in a room where you really can pick out the breeding from the accents - I think with a little practice I might be able to distinguish a Cambridge education from and Oxford one. . The crowd, as far as I can tell, is mainly a mixture of genuine ex-pats and a few executives for multi-national companies who are doing stints in Kenya. Ultimately, I am disappointed that this sports club still belongs to the musungo. The Kakamega club, while far more humble, belongs to (has been appropriated by) Africans. I have been graciously welcomed there but my skin colour invites curiosity, not instant entitlement.
The food starts and it is pretty darn good, I must admit. I eat everything put in front of me including a seafood appetizer I believe, based on the menu, to be a Salmon mousse. I soon discover that the mousse includes other fishy things (shrimp, of course, which I am allergic to). By the end of the meal I feel slightly woozy, but I also have been fighting a stomach bug since leaving Mombassa. I try to buckle down and find my second wind.
The music starts up and I am dismayed that it is basically the same music used in North America to coax stiff musungos onto a dance floor at a wedding (think Abba - 'Dancing Queen')
The stomach bug, the seafood mousse, the music - reader, I threw up on a flower bed out behind the club. At 11 PM I am barely standing and am certainly done with the scene. I plead to my date that she stay and enjoy the party, but she insists on leaving with me and seeing me safely to my hotel (a gesture I greatly appreciated).
It is only later I recall how much my maternal grandmother loathed the british class system she grew up with and how pleased and proud she was to live in Canada. I can only think she would approve of my puking on the flowers.
