I'm here again hurray! It was absolute hell getting out the door of the US because At&T/IBM conspired to ruin my life (Claire wasn't kidding--AT&T abjectly lied to me. it was shocking. They even acknowledged that they had lied many times, but that they couldn't fix it. ARRRGGGH.) and because i'm an idiot and had no time to do everything that needed to be done; but the flights were delightfully smooth and I even made it to them thanks to a multi-person effort to get me out the door (thanks mom and dad! And Will and Gabs and Bobo and Gracie! And Silvana! The George Clooney-obsessed flight attendant for BA! i'll forgive you for the Matthew McConaughey pictures...) One very short layover in London, lots of sleep and a bit of movie watching. Then more sleep.
I was dreadfully hungover from a month of relative sleeplessness between finals and a round of serious MCAT cramming and taking. BUT it's all OVER!!! And though I return from Africa to a nice round up of summer school, I now have a blissful whole month of doing much more fun things like hanging with the urphins.
So far Kenya has been uneventful. There was a small bit of bribery of customs officials when I got in, but even that was really quite painless in the end--when I invoked the fact that it was donations for kids, they didn't care, but when I explained that I was giving them to a church and anything they charged me, the reverend would be paying so REALLY they were charging the Kenyan church for US donations, the numbers went down real quick. happily--as their first numbers started at over 400 USD, which got me all red in the face and sweaty with outrage. but in the end, it was more like 15 USD. Claire says this has nothing to do with my bargaining skills and everything to do wit hthe fact that they were being ridiculous, I beg to differ.
Other than that, it's been quiet, like I said. Highlights have included:
1) getting yelled at by the airport officials beyond the customs people because I kept scampering across the security lines without getting checked or even showing a passport to talk to my driver (the wonderful Francis) about how best to bribe people and to get money from the bank. They eased up for some reason when I told them "asanti sana" or thank you very much in Kiswahili. At first, I thought this was because they were impressed with my (totally nonexistent) language skills. Then I realized they were probably laughing at me.
2) realizing that despite my massive massive amounts of crap, I did manage to forget important things
3) READING A NOVEL for the first time in a long time. I've read two in fact. And it was great.
4) Offering Splenda to the woman that cleans my hotel room. They hadn't given me sugar for my coffee that morning, so I rummaged through all my stuff and found a couple of stray bags of splenda (no I really had not packed them). When I explained to the woman that I would need sugar in the morning, she seemed to doubt my need for sugar since I was drinking their coffee as we spoke in the supposedly sugar-free room. By way of explanation, I showed her the Splenda. She wanted some. so I handed it over, and she promptly poured it over her hand and licked it off.
She liked it.
5) Grocery shopping, showering after my airplane ride with a pretty gecko, sleeping through the night for about 11 hours when I got here, and reuniting with our driver Francis were other highlights.
Now it's almost 3 AM here, I'm awake again, and need to go back to sleep. But part worry about how the next few months will go, and mostly excitement to be back and seeing hte kids tomorrow are keeping me up--
SO good to be back. And far away from Science Lecture Hall C and my MCAT books.
Sigh.
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