Saturday, June 26, 2010

This is what happens when you leave me……




…I make fantastic style choices. The rest of the gang left Kenya on Wednesday. It hasn’t fully set-in that I will be here for another six weeks by myself but I certainly already miss my travel companions. I couldn’t have asked for better people to share this experience with and I will be forever grateful that they made me feel like I was part of the group from day one.

Once we dropped Jeanette off at the airport, Barasa and I returned to downtown Nairobi and spent the night in a small hotel where we ate fried chicken and French fries on our beds while we watched the world cup. We spent a good portion of the next day walking around the Nairobi second-hand markets searching for vintage neckties before we hoped on a bus and went to Kawangware to pick-up his laptop. As we stepped on board, Don Williams “I’ve been loved by the best” emanated soothingly from the remarkably crisp speakers and I knew we’d picked the right one. I asked the conductor what the name of the mix was and he said it was a few years old (back when they used to burn audio files onto CDRs rather than the MP3s that they now load on to DVDs) and that I wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere. He said I could copy it when I returned to Nairobi and I took down his email and phone number. Meanwhile, Barasa had moved to the front of the bus and was in deep conversation with the driver. When we got to our stop the music halted abruptly and I watched Barasa exit with that devilish grin that graces his face so often. Once outside he just laughed and handed me the CD. He said he paid the driver 100 ksh and then dropped some knowledge about knowing what you want and not worrying about what other people think as you go after it. God I love that guy.

And that’s the story of how I got Kenya’s Country Mix 3. At least I have the conductors address so I can mail it back to him before I leave. Anyway, there’s nothing quite like cruising through the slums of Nairobi listening to John Denver’s “Country Road” thinking about home, hoping what I'm doing here is making some small difference, and thanking God for all the blessings I've received.

2 comments:

  1. If you are going for cheesy character actor in a low budget movie, you achieved it! :)

    Great CD story...

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  2. damn. thank god for the interweb. looking HOT, biddle. i will now dream of that stash every nite. phew.

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