A Completely Random Collection of Stories, With Pictures!

Wow, so it's been well over a month since I've posted anything here. To sum it up briefly, I've been slightly "distracted" and then was off in Nairobi for two weeks in mid-April for Peace Corps In-Service-Training. You would think I would have a lot to write about, but now that I'm sitting here, I can't think of a single thing.

I am attempting to get into marathon-running shape to run a nearby marathon at the end of June, but work is kinda killing me on that front. It's not smart to try to run in the dark (from 7 pm to 6 am) because it is absolutely pitch black outside (great for stargazing!) and I'm not the most coordinated person in the world and would probably trip and kill myself. Plus, there are others out who would probably like to relieve me of anything I might be carrying, including shoes, glasses, clothes - anything that is not physically attached to my body. So I try to run in the daylight, and with a long walk to and from work some days, it's not always easy/possible to squeeze that in. But I've started doing what I used to do in California and run home from work some days. Since I lived pretty far away from home previously (Emeryville to Lafayette was 15 miles taking back roads over the Berkeley hills), I usually didn't have the time to run the whole way home, and did about 11-12 miles and hopped on BART either in Rockridge or Orinda, for those of you who know where those stations are. Yes, I probably grossed a lot of people out by getting on the train smelling like a bed of roses (freshly fertilized with a bag of poop, that is), but the train was usually pretty empty by 7 or 8 pm and most people just wondered what the heck I was doing, but never asked.

Anyway, that was a long side-bar. What I meant to say was that I'm running home from my faraway work location higher up in the hills toward Mt. Kenya, and that it is a pretty spectacular run home. I'm going to try to post a picture here of what it looks like at the one place I work where I start this run:

This view is from my desk in one of the "offices" at which I work. I use the quotes because it's really just a room with a desk and a shelf in it, which is really all that I need. Yes, sometimes it is hard to work because all I want to do is go climb the mountain - volcano, actually. But I'll get to the top soon enough, and then probably about 4 or 5 more times before I eventually return to the US. Out of all of the beautiful locations I could have been placed in Kenya, I think I'm in the most beautiful of all. I still have some coast-envy, but looking up at the mountain every day is a pretty spectacular treat. I am smart enough to know to not to take this for granted.

Let's see, what else... I got together with the other 34 volunteers in my group (really incredible people, all of them) in Nairobi a couple weeks ago, and while I was there, I stuffed my face like I've never stuffed my face before. I think I had lost some serious weight since arriving in Kenya, and I did my best to put all of it back on over those two weeks with the free food. And I wasn't alone. One night I had just sat down to eat with my buddy Chris and we both looked over to the table next to us and saw this massive plate of food. Seriously, it was one of the biggest plates of food I have ever seen in my life. We both kinda looked at each other and mumbled "Holy Shit!", and then impatiently waited to see who was going to sit down in front of it. It was a solid three or four minutes of suspense and it turned out to be one of the thinner guys in the group. Needless to say we were both very shocked and then completely impressed when he finished every niblet of food on the plate.

This blog post has absolutely no theme or direction to it whatsoever, so I'm going to throw this bad-boy from 3rd gear into reverse and see what happens. My town... I realized I haven't posted too many pictures at all here, and most of you have no conception of what my town looks like, so I'm going to post a few pics. It's very difficult to take pictures in town, because I don't want to be seen with a camera and treated as a tourist. So I try to be very discrete. These are all from the same vantage point on the third floor (strangely called the 2nd floor by everyone, which always messes me up, the ground floor is "zero", not "one") at another one of the offices where I work, in town proper.

This is kind of a panoramic set of shots, the first is almost looking eastward toward Mt. Kenya from town, the second is looking directly into the heart of town in a southerly direction, and the third is looking mostly westward toward the US, which is waaaaaaaaaaaaay off in the distance, although the curvature of the Earth and the downtown buildings are blocking the view... but I know it's there.
Also, I think I took these very, very early in the morning one day, so there aren't very many people or vehicles on the streets. Usually the streets are a mass of humanity - people moving every which way and vehicles weaving all over beeping for the pedestrians to get out of their way. It is quite a site.
It's like being in a very busy part of a major downtown area in the US - always something going on and you could spend hours just hanging out people-watching. In the middle picture, off to the right side is the matatu stand, which is basically the public transport hub for the town. I am probably not being culturally sensitive here, but it is more-or-less an insane bus station. I only say that because, as a muzungu (foreigner), the minute you go in, you get mobbed by people asking where you are going and trying to convince you to go in their matutu (van) wherever they happen to be going. But like any other situation , you just gotta be firm (and polite when possible), keep an eye on your stuff, and it's pretty easy to navigate around. Most people are very helpful and will walk you to the place you need to be to catch a shuttle where you're going. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the kindness that most total strangers show here. Yes, some are just after money or other material goods, but most just want to say "hello" and I really try to not have my guard up so much that I am going to offend the majority of people who have good intentions. It's a constant balancing act.

Ok, time to wrap this up for now. If I get to town tomorrow, I'll try to post again.