o yeah? well i know the family that controls the water...

My weekend visiting with the staff of BlueSky Adventures and their wide friend circle of ex-pats and the children of diplomats in Nairobi sums up as follows: “Yeah, my dad works for Jeffrey Sachs. I love Jeffro! He wrote me two recommendations for college today actually...”

Jeffrey freakin’ Sachs?!? No way…

a kenyan kitchen experiment: chapatti

I am in serious debt to Mary, my “age mate” and the Robi family’s house girl. She prepares every meal, launders my clothes and sheets on the weekends, and most importantly ensures that there is cold Coke Light in the refrigerator most days. : ) I thank her profusely...because I am pathetically and painfully dependent in this country. Beyond domesticity, she is a trained tailor whose skills are essential to our sewing group, the school cooking staff {whose pleated garments she sews), and our children {half or more of whom wear the uniforms she has created}.

She is amazing.

My menu consisted almost entirely of Cheerios and skim milk in the States and if I was entertaining it was almost always a meeting out to dinner. With hope that I may bring an ounce of Mary’s talent and the food culture home with me, I joined her in the kitchen on Thursday, March 26 to make chapatti, a traditional Kenyan base dish borrowed from India…most commonly known as homemade flour tortillas…with a little oil.

Ingredients & Necessities:

water

flour

baking powder

sugar

oil

rolling pin

large mixing bowl

Instructions:

1. Heat water until light boil. Add additional water to the pot until water has returned to a warm temperature.

2. Measure and pour 1 ½ to 2 cups of water into large bowl.

3. Add approximately 5 tsp. sugar and mix until well-dissolved.

4. Add approximately ½ tsp. baking powder. Mix in sugar water.

5. Add 4 large cups of all-purpose four.

6. Mix and knead dough. Sprinkle with additional flour if necessary to prevent sticking.

7. Clean a large, flat surface and roll out dough to a ¼ inch thickness.

8. Pour 1 ½ tbs. of oil over dough and spread with the back of a spoon.

9. Roll dough into a hot dog with the oiled surface inside the fold.

10. Cut roll of dough into 1 ½ to 2 inch slices, tucking the loose end of the spiral into the center. Recipe should yield approximately 15 dough balls.

11. Heat a flat, cast iron skilled.

12. Sprinkle flat surface with flour. Flatten dough balls with a rolling pin to 1/8 inch thickness or less. Dough should yield a tortilla 7 to 8 inches in diameter.

13. Throw tortilla on skillet and allow to heat for approximately 45 seconds or until a light browning appears. Flip.

14. Add approximately 1 tbs. of oil to the tortilla and spread with the back of the spoon. Allow to cook for approximately 25 seconds of until a light browning occurs.

15. Continue to flip and add additional oil until desired browning is achieved.

Enjoy!

tnick

i marvel...

at the woman who cleans the school two times daily with a bucket of water and an old sweatshirt, bent ninety degrees or greater at the waist cleaning the layers of dust and dirt from the concrete floors…without a mop, broom or custodial bucket to wring the rag clean for her…who has the courage to throw her empty bucket at the mafia of geese obstructing her path to the water pump.

at the hundreds of kilometers I can see from my room on the hill overlooking the Rift Valley…and realizing that I will likely never see those abstract and tiny places at any closer distance.

at the amount of dirt and dust caked on my legs up to my knees and under my toenails at the end of the day…but thankful that it is dirt of the earth and not the dirt of people.

at how unglamorous I have become, but yet how I am growing to love my look wearing nothing more than sunscreen, mascara, and chapstick.

at how I have not checked my bank account status in nearly a month, but I feel wealthy and at peace with the 30,000 shillings {or $380} and debit card in my pocket in a country with few functioning ATM machines.

Signing off for the weekend, on the road to Nairobi…

tnick

a weekend in the life of susan robi {and me}

I mentioned in a previous post that too much free time is generally a bad thing here. Granted, my little library has been given its due attention and I am loving Spanish and Latin American authors right now {shout out to Roberto Bolaño and Márquez!}. Anyhow, as the hours creep by on Fridays, I start to literally feel an uncomfortable bodily anxiety: “O no! O no! O no! There is no way I can last to December; therefore there is also no way I can last until Sunday.” Really, that’s just silly logic. Thankfully, with a help of a hint delicately dropped by Wanjohi {Steve, or beer in Swahili} as our new fuel-efficient stoves were finally fired up on Friday afternoon, Susan invited me to spend the weekend with her in town proper.

Prior to the first stop, during our journey: I decided on a new adventure, much to my mother’s fear and Susan’s insistence that I am crazy. I desperately want to ride a boda boda, a bicycle taxi {literally, me sitting on a cushion on the back of a single-person bicycle}. Granted, they do not look remotely safe and the drivers have the tendency to ignore cars, but I think a short trip down a less-traveled road with Gideon following by car, video camera recording would be awesome. First stop: Mary’s cyber cafe, my new second home here. Nothing beats slow Internet and an ice-cold bottle of Krest Bitter Lemon served up by little Andrew on a Friday! Mary later carried me to the Merica Hotel to meet Susan, who had snuck away to “pick up something across town” (i.e. clean up her apartment). After lunching at Midlands Hotel the previous weekend, the havens of luxury in Nakuru are puzzling, juxtaposed with such harsh environments and realities. Inside: you might as well be in Hawaii—a light breeze, open verandas, mood lighting, tantalizing fresh fruit, and a well-dressed crowd. A few sodas and chicken skewers later, Susan and I called it a night in favor of television…which I have not done in a long time. On our docket: Hell’s Kitchen and Kelly Rippa’s shame, Hope & Faith.

Saturday was a whirlwind, and Sunday was not. Susan and I headed to lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant where I ate a curried chicken…with my hands…because that is how you do it…on top of a fermented crepe made out of rice? Round two was at Gilani’s supermarket/restaurant where the item of choice was chocolate ice cream that placated this insane heat, momentarily. Joined by Angela and Ben, we meandered to the Graceland Hotel in the upper class area of town. I downed a few {more} sodas and some peanuts while intensely people-watching and discussing the merits of Biggie versus 2 Pac with Ben. Our final hop was to Taidy’s where we were hoping to catch one of the big match-ups of the EPL after hearing that Man U was again beaten earlier in the day...but to no avail. Susan and I settled for a seat on the veranda away from the televisions and pool tables for rotisserie chicken rivaling Boston Market and bhajias {potatoes roasted in Indian spices}. Sunday we were lazy: church service in the morning, television all afternoon long.

Yeah, so in review, this sounds like I do little more than eat all the time. : )

I had a warm feeling returning to school on Monday morning, uniquely refreshed after seeing people and places beyond my security block of the school compound. I smiled as I helped Zachariah carry a few {thankfully empty} water jugs up the hill at the end of his day, my usual bathroom break. Random, awe-inspiring fact: women and small children carry 20-liter drums of water {that’s ten 2-liter Sprite bottles, guys} strapped across their foreheads and balanced on their backs. That’s just nuts. Anyhow, another smile appeared as Boniface hiked arm to shoulder with a new friend and fellow orphan, John, and he even returned a smile with a wave. My little guy has come so far! And then I realized there was a spider hanging out on the toilet paper roll…after I had sat down…and was doing my thing.

That’s my life.

How was your first weekend of spring?

Love to you,

tnick

feature book review, part one of many

I am not your typical Bible reader (not that there is a definition of a typical Bible reader) and I will admit that I have never read the text as a whole. My readings have been limited to hopping around. I’ve read and studied books and chapters as they appear as allusions in other artworks. Nevertheless, my opinion is that it is one of the most enthralling manuscripts ever published. Here is where my inner and outer nerd thumps its little heart: it is quite possibly the product of the greatest (and shoddiest) editorial effort of all time. There are multiple authors, multiple editors, multiple translations, ghost writing, lost pieces, found pieces and canonization (i.e. a big whopper in history). It is an anthology at heart with indelible and honorable scratches, cuts, dings and bruises: marks of survival to modern day. If its stories and letters accomplish anything across religious lines and levels of devotion, they are undoubtedly the calling to action of a person in flawed world, then and now. I found this anecdote to be intimately appropriate for my head space and life space, playing third-world world activist for now...with the notion of possibly becoming a lawyer one day (from my boy Isaiah, 58):

⁶ Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

¹¹ The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

Very good stuff for my current sun-scorched home, right?

I cannot express sufficient gratitude for the support and encouragement I have received from so many of you and from so many unexpected places as I turn one big step across the ocean into many small steps towards a special kind of justice here in Nakuru.

The only wealth is to be thankful...

tnick

one and two and three and four and get those sit-ups right and...

As some of you know, I have decided to take up an exercise routine in my free time. Downtime in a third-world country is a bad thing. You (well, I) start planning, rationalizing, philosophizing, and thinking: what am I going to be doing in 12 months? what would a salad taste like right now? where could I find a cold Belgian? when was the last time I was in shape?

All of this exercising business began yesterday. At around 6:00 in the evening I head to the school compound to go for a jog. There are three downsides. 1) All the villagers and children on their way to the well are thinking, “Who is that crazy white girl in the green pants running in circles uphill both ways in a maze of rocks, dirt, holes, and animal droppings?” They wave and half-smile politely. 2) I now get to think about how shockingly unfit I am, not aided in the least by this altitude. 3) After I pat myself on the butt for completing one-half of a lap longer than yesterday (yes, pathetic), I remember that I get to climb that killer-steep hill back to my accommodations! Very tragic, huh?

I complain, but really though, you cannot beat evening jogs during Rift Valley sunsets with a light breeze…until you find yourself downwind from the outhouses to knock you back into reality. :)

Here is to me becoming super trim on my journey to becoming marathoner…or just a miler...here, here!

With love to you from this beautiful place,

tnick

home in the strangest places, part two

As part of Monday morning assembly, the boys were sternly warned (and openly in front of the whole school) that they were not using the bathrooms properly. Please imagine this in an accent: “You are not going in the hole. It is a shame.” Boys will be boys…in bathrooms…no matter where on this globe they are or what human waste receptacle is at their disposal.

home in the strangest places

Short and sweet, a few observations for today:

The ride from Nairobi to Nakuru is always interesting, marked by the random police, military, and highway patrol traffic stops. Really, we were stopped just to say, “What’s up?” Who would have thought that Weezy and Beyoncé would be advertising here alongside Man U and Nivea Cream for stretch marks?

I exploded a bottle of Coke Light in what I thought was the refrigerator, but was actually the freezer—a glass bottle. That is about standard, right Dad?

There is an entire line of cookies, crackers and candies named Tiffany, shipped from the UAE. And a Wool-Matt (say it fast enough, maybe with a foreign accent, and what do you think it sounds like?). And Reuben (for any of you that know him or any of the GTF group that met him) is a radio DJ on the weekends, which is entirely hilarious.

Send me the good vibes across the ocean…

tnick

hello, old friend

Okay, so I know I am really horrible at this. It has been a week and a half and I have not written one word...sigh. 1. I really hate Google's blogging program. 2. It is impossible to post photographs with the speed of the Internet here and how old the computers are...and I would rather you 'see' than 'read.' 3. So much happens here in a week! A sampling: we disbursed approximately 600 pairs of shoes to current and graduated students, a women's sewing co-op was developed and has churned out b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l handmade goods for sale, the orphans moved into their home at which point I cried...heavily, running water is now moving through five faucets in the dining hall, I ran into a 5-inch toad on the way to the bathroom at 2:00 in the morning, and I learned all about the unique {and frustrating} relationship between information and power here.

Thank you for the profound love you have sent across the ocean; I eagerly and patiently work through my attempt to connect to dial-up every late night for that reason.

In conclusion: I am alive, just slow and less efficient than many of you remember when it comes to completing this kind of task. Kenya makes you lose your sense of urgency... :) And because this program will not recognize the enter button, therefore eliminating my signature line: love to you, with more to come soon, from tnick.