So it's been so long since I blogged but as my eyes well up and I feel simultaneously angry, guilty and upset I just had to write. So I haven't told you all about Steve have I? Steve is a young Kenyan who used to be one of the guards in my compound. Steve is 21, bright as a button, got a big smile and a very gentle nature. He loves kids, never takes money when he does a job for people and always goes out of his way to help people. One day we got chatting - about life, the meaning of it, struggles, joys and those special moments. He asked me if I knew anyone looking for a worker -a cook, cleaner, driver as he coudn't stand working 6 at night til 6 in the morning 6 days a week for 5000 Kenyan shillings. His rent is 3,500, the bus is 50 each day and he has to eat and support his mum. By the way - to put that in perspective -I pay 2000 shillings a month just for my blackberry....
Long story short - I wanted to help him. Have I done anything worthwhile since living in Africa? Really? Working at the UN writing intangible, abstract speeches, lectures, papers, editing...god it all feels so pointless at times.
3 months in - he is getting 88 per cent in a graphic design course 2 hours a day. However - he lost his job 3 weeks back as the slave driving immoral unethical bastards that run these security companies decided he couldn't have a day off to see his sick mother. So he went - they sacked him.
Tonight he came around so I can give him next month's school fees. He has lost weight but was smart in a pair of polished shoes and an ironed shirt and black trousers. I give him a cup of tea and pull out some biscuits. We talks and talk ...too much to write here but I realise how wise this kid is. I ask him if he is eating. A long pause. "It's ok - sometimes I go hungry." I open my larder - god I feel embarassed - I pull out biscuits, crackers, a few cans of beer, beans and rice." Go eat and go study I say.
He looks at me and says "thank you - you have a big heart." Do I? Is it really any sacrifice on my part? He asks if he can hug me. Somehow that is too intimate. I smile and shake his hand and promise to see him soon.
Sunday 3 October 2010
Sunday 20 June 2010
Gems in the dust - Nairobi
Nairobi. A city that fascinates, repels, inspires, frustrates and amazes me. Ten months stuttering the answer to “Where do you live?” Pause. “Nairobi”. The predictable reply. “Oh Nairobbery?”
Then a paradoxical response, tinged with annoyance because I feel defensive towards my adopted city and also, dare I say it, a trace of smugness that I survive, perhaps thrive, in this alien environment.
I’m still unsure how I landed here, why I am here and for what purpose. The superficial rationale is easy – I came for a job. The deeper, personal and spiritual purpose continues to elude me.
Red dust. Tracts of incandescent green. Tattered buildings. Mega-brands. Safaricom. Zain. Malls. Traffic. Noise. Previously unheard expressions and words. Fear. Loneliness. Excitement. Echoes of past stories and histories. Election violence. Hijackings. Vestiges of colonialism. Tribalism. Familiarity of language but not of culture, vestiges of my own culture morphed into something totally different, now almost unrecognizable.
How does a white girl from North London makes sense of it all? What do I write about my impressions without sounding impossibly naïve, stupid, judgmental? Despite having lived in 5 cities in four different countries before landing here, this has without doubt, been the most challenging and strange so far.
My bewilderment is evident at all levels. The first time I was asked if someone should “flash” me, I stayed mute. Of course, in the UK, flashing has other connotations. Here it’s a missed call on a mobile phone to exchange numbers; an evolving hybrid English-Swahili slang to match the mobile age.
Nairobi is a deeply religious city. Christian radio bounces through the airwaves, shop assistants tell me I will be judged by the Lord if my cheque bounces despite my reassurances that there is money in the account. Thousands of people attend Church services on a Sunday and prostrate and pray to a higher power on the top of Nairobi’s principal sports stadium. At the same time, within this population, there is a sexual predatory openness, promiscuity, a familiarity that I find daunting, reckless, and raw. “You’re very defensive” I have been told when out dancing. “My friend likes you. You’re beautiful. Have a drink. Loosen up. Join us…” hissed in sour alcohol breath as I squirm, twist, and edge away from unwanted advances. Nairobi is uninhibited, expressive, reckless and to an outsider, strangely contradictory.
For those lucky few on an upward financial and social curve, I acknowledge and understand the obsessions with cable TV, big houses and fast cars. These outward shows of money are to be seen, treasured and respected. This may be a developing country but for those that have made it, there is no pleasure in understatement. Be bold, be flashy, express your success and be glad you’re not one of the millions still in the gutter.
Yet every day, I glance out of my car window and see old hunched women carrying bundles of illegally gathered firewood, backs bowed in two, often shoeless. I drive past mansions and see Masai warriors and herds of cows walking along the road in searing red cloth. I blink. Still there. My car attracts scores of badly dressed ragged children and the blind line the streets rattling cups. I open my window. Stupid girl. Watch for your bag, your phone. Close the door.
I see the same sweet 13 year old boy in tattered grey shorts and blue jersey selling ground nuts in translucent paper for ten shillings every day. Sometimes, usually, I give him money and through my car window we strike up a relationship borne of habit. The other day he grinned broadly, "Madam, madam...I have my grades - I had exams." He proceeded to go into a long explanation of which I understood nothing, except he had come 5th out of 32 students.
I was inexplicably proud of him - a poor tall boy in shorts selling nuts until 9 or 10 at night in the dark in a main road, managing to succeed. That's courage. I buy beaded bracelets I neither need nor want because someone needs to buy food that day. I become friends with the old man selling handmade bamboo elephants by the side of the road. The cars continue to honk and scream at me. This is Nairobi.
I can’t walk around at night. I feel trapped. Claustrophic. It’s an irony as the city is lush, green, and abundant but hides menace. I miss concrete pavements, streets, cinemas, boutiques, windy city pathways. Sometimes I even long to board a metro train to be able to speed somewhere, to dash off underground deep into a city and then emerge somewhere new. I am a prisoner to my car.
This brings me to driving. Chaos. No rules. Would closing one’s eyes and stepping on the accelerator be any more dangerous? Will someone explain to me why Kenyans are slow at nearly everything except on the roads? Banks, coffees, shops, talking, cleaning and cooking -nothing is rushed. Driving, however, is akin to being strapped inside a cross between a fairground ride and a missile. It is also, I’ve learnt, a battle of the wills here and a new found trust in a higher protective power.
I came here somewhat on an impulse. I feel denuded, stupid, unschooled in African history, politics, and the names of the different tribes, the nuances of race, religion and class. I picked up the basics enough to nod in the right places and reply in a half -way intelligent conversation - but probe too far and I hesitate. I feel cut off from this society and simultaneously, cut off from my own. I am living in a no-man’s land, not quite part of either and fumbling through this one.
Nairobi. Sometimes leaving the airport you see the lean tall giraffe necks silhouetted against the polluted grey city skyline grazing in the National Park. This city is bizarre, unpredictable, raw, earthy, and often cruel.
The hustle and bustle of parts of the city centre has a whiff of Dickensian London. A bygone era of squalor, dirt, trade hustle and bustle, the reek of food and chaos of an overcrowded urban centre. Disease, poverty, crowds of people eeking a living, the streets a second home to the traders, marketers and hustlers seeking their coin.
Do I like it here? Am I at home? In all honesty, my feelings reflect the city. I love it and hate it. I feel both richer and poorer for being here. I feel at home and alienated.
I feel moments of powerful energy and creativity and simultaneously, ambivalence. Amongst it all I cannot escape a feeling of being watched, of lurking danger and the daily torment of the poor. At times this city whiffs of fast deals, big money and luxury. There is an undercurrent. It may not be spoken of in everyday conversation, but this city has seen extreme violence, bloodshed and retribution as communities rip each other apart. That doesn’t just go away. It simmers, rises and subsides, contaminating the way people react, observe and judge each other.
I can’t pin Nairobi down; I can’t make sense of it nor quite work out where I fit within it. Perhaps that is its secret, to keep people guessing and wondering, what now, what next?
It may be a case of observing and waiting in the wings to see where and how I can play a role. Or perhaps it is a stepping stone which will only make sense sometime in the future.
Nairobi is of course, an easy African city to live in for many reasons. I can buy vegetarian sausages; I can go to the cinema, get my hair done and pick up a sushi take-away. It attracts brilliant eclectic people and adventurers, it nurses entrepreneurialism. All of this, I appreciate.
Yet, it is a city that will continue to shock, surprise and knock you down when you’re least expecting it. After a pause and reflection, it then usually has the grace to gently pick you up to face another day.
Then a paradoxical response, tinged with annoyance because I feel defensive towards my adopted city and also, dare I say it, a trace of smugness that I survive, perhaps thrive, in this alien environment.
I’m still unsure how I landed here, why I am here and for what purpose. The superficial rationale is easy – I came for a job. The deeper, personal and spiritual purpose continues to elude me.
Red dust. Tracts of incandescent green. Tattered buildings. Mega-brands. Safaricom. Zain. Malls. Traffic. Noise. Previously unheard expressions and words. Fear. Loneliness. Excitement. Echoes of past stories and histories. Election violence. Hijackings. Vestiges of colonialism. Tribalism. Familiarity of language but not of culture, vestiges of my own culture morphed into something totally different, now almost unrecognizable.
How does a white girl from North London makes sense of it all? What do I write about my impressions without sounding impossibly naïve, stupid, judgmental? Despite having lived in 5 cities in four different countries before landing here, this has without doubt, been the most challenging and strange so far.
My bewilderment is evident at all levels. The first time I was asked if someone should “flash” me, I stayed mute. Of course, in the UK, flashing has other connotations. Here it’s a missed call on a mobile phone to exchange numbers; an evolving hybrid English-Swahili slang to match the mobile age.
Nairobi is a deeply religious city. Christian radio bounces through the airwaves, shop assistants tell me I will be judged by the Lord if my cheque bounces despite my reassurances that there is money in the account. Thousands of people attend Church services on a Sunday and prostrate and pray to a higher power on the top of Nairobi’s principal sports stadium. At the same time, within this population, there is a sexual predatory openness, promiscuity, a familiarity that I find daunting, reckless, and raw. “You’re very defensive” I have been told when out dancing. “My friend likes you. You’re beautiful. Have a drink. Loosen up. Join us…” hissed in sour alcohol breath as I squirm, twist, and edge away from unwanted advances. Nairobi is uninhibited, expressive, reckless and to an outsider, strangely contradictory.
For those lucky few on an upward financial and social curve, I acknowledge and understand the obsessions with cable TV, big houses and fast cars. These outward shows of money are to be seen, treasured and respected. This may be a developing country but for those that have made it, there is no pleasure in understatement. Be bold, be flashy, express your success and be glad you’re not one of the millions still in the gutter.
Yet every day, I glance out of my car window and see old hunched women carrying bundles of illegally gathered firewood, backs bowed in two, often shoeless. I drive past mansions and see Masai warriors and herds of cows walking along the road in searing red cloth. I blink. Still there. My car attracts scores of badly dressed ragged children and the blind line the streets rattling cups. I open my window. Stupid girl. Watch for your bag, your phone. Close the door.
I see the same sweet 13 year old boy in tattered grey shorts and blue jersey selling ground nuts in translucent paper for ten shillings every day. Sometimes, usually, I give him money and through my car window we strike up a relationship borne of habit. The other day he grinned broadly, "Madam, madam...I have my grades - I had exams." He proceeded to go into a long explanation of which I understood nothing, except he had come 5th out of 32 students.
I was inexplicably proud of him - a poor tall boy in shorts selling nuts until 9 or 10 at night in the dark in a main road, managing to succeed. That's courage. I buy beaded bracelets I neither need nor want because someone needs to buy food that day. I become friends with the old man selling handmade bamboo elephants by the side of the road. The cars continue to honk and scream at me. This is Nairobi.
I can’t walk around at night. I feel trapped. Claustrophic. It’s an irony as the city is lush, green, and abundant but hides menace. I miss concrete pavements, streets, cinemas, boutiques, windy city pathways. Sometimes I even long to board a metro train to be able to speed somewhere, to dash off underground deep into a city and then emerge somewhere new. I am a prisoner to my car.
This brings me to driving. Chaos. No rules. Would closing one’s eyes and stepping on the accelerator be any more dangerous? Will someone explain to me why Kenyans are slow at nearly everything except on the roads? Banks, coffees, shops, talking, cleaning and cooking -nothing is rushed. Driving, however, is akin to being strapped inside a cross between a fairground ride and a missile. It is also, I’ve learnt, a battle of the wills here and a new found trust in a higher protective power.
I came here somewhat on an impulse. I feel denuded, stupid, unschooled in African history, politics, and the names of the different tribes, the nuances of race, religion and class. I picked up the basics enough to nod in the right places and reply in a half -way intelligent conversation - but probe too far and I hesitate. I feel cut off from this society and simultaneously, cut off from my own. I am living in a no-man’s land, not quite part of either and fumbling through this one.
Nairobi. Sometimes leaving the airport you see the lean tall giraffe necks silhouetted against the polluted grey city skyline grazing in the National Park. This city is bizarre, unpredictable, raw, earthy, and often cruel.
The hustle and bustle of parts of the city centre has a whiff of Dickensian London. A bygone era of squalor, dirt, trade hustle and bustle, the reek of food and chaos of an overcrowded urban centre. Disease, poverty, crowds of people eeking a living, the streets a second home to the traders, marketers and hustlers seeking their coin.
Do I like it here? Am I at home? In all honesty, my feelings reflect the city. I love it and hate it. I feel both richer and poorer for being here. I feel at home and alienated.
I feel moments of powerful energy and creativity and simultaneously, ambivalence. Amongst it all I cannot escape a feeling of being watched, of lurking danger and the daily torment of the poor. At times this city whiffs of fast deals, big money and luxury. There is an undercurrent. It may not be spoken of in everyday conversation, but this city has seen extreme violence, bloodshed and retribution as communities rip each other apart. That doesn’t just go away. It simmers, rises and subsides, contaminating the way people react, observe and judge each other.
I can’t pin Nairobi down; I can’t make sense of it nor quite work out where I fit within it. Perhaps that is its secret, to keep people guessing and wondering, what now, what next?
It may be a case of observing and waiting in the wings to see where and how I can play a role. Or perhaps it is a stepping stone which will only make sense sometime in the future.
Nairobi is of course, an easy African city to live in for many reasons. I can buy vegetarian sausages; I can go to the cinema, get my hair done and pick up a sushi take-away. It attracts brilliant eclectic people and adventurers, it nurses entrepreneurialism. All of this, I appreciate.
Yet, it is a city that will continue to shock, surprise and knock you down when you’re least expecting it. After a pause and reflection, it then usually has the grace to gently pick you up to face another day.
Gems in the dust
Nairobi. A city that fascinates, repels, inspires, frustrates and amazes me. Ten months stuttering the answer to “Where do you live?” Pause. “Nairobi”. The predictable reply. “Oh Nairobbery?”
Then a paradoxical response, tinged with annoyance because I feel defensive towards my adopted city and also, dare I say it, a trace of smugness that I survive, perhaps thrive, in this alien environment.
I’m still unsure how I landed here, why I am here and for what purpose. The superficial rationale is easy – I came for a job. The deeper, personal and spiritual purpose continues to elude me.
Red dust. Tracts of incandescent green. Tattered buildings. Mega-brands. Safaricom. Zain. Malls. Traffic. Noise. Previously unheard expressions and words. Fear. Loneliness. Excitement. Echoes of past stories and histories. Election violence. Hijackings. Vestiges of colonialism. Tribalism. Familiarity of language but not of culture, vestiges of my own culture morphed into something totally different, now almost unrecognizable.
How does a white girl from North London makes sense of it all? What do I write about my impressions without sounding impossibly naïve, stupid, judgmental? Despite having lived in 5 cities in four different countries before landing here, this has without doubt, been the most challenging and strange so far.
My bewilderment is evident at all levels. The first time I was asked if someone should “flash” me, I stayed mute. Of course, in the UK, flashing has other connotations. Here it’s a missed call on a mobile phone to exchange numbers; an evolving hybrid English-Swahili slang to match the mobile age.
Nairobi is a deeply religious city. Christian radio bounces through the airwaves, shop assistants tell me I will be judged by the Lord if my cheque bounces despite my reassurances that there is money in the account. Thousands of people attend Church services on a Sunday and prostrate and pray to a higher power on the top of Nairobi’s principal sports stadium. At the same time, within this population, there is a sexual predatory openness, promiscuity, a familiarity that I find daunting, reckless, and raw. “You’re very defensive” I have been told when out dancing. “My friend likes you. You’re beautiful. Have a drink. Loosen up. Join us…” hissed in sour alcohol breath as I squirm, twist, and edge away from unwanted advances. Nairobi is uninhibited, expressive, reckless and to an outsider, strangely contradictory.
For those lucky few on an upward financial and social curve, I acknowledge and understand the obsessions with cable TV, big houses and fast cars. These outward shows of money are to be seen, treasured and respected. This may be a developing country but for those that have made it, there is no pleasure in understatement. Be bold, be flashy, express your success and be glad you’re not one of the millions still in the gutter.
Yet every day, I glance out of my car window and see old hunched women carrying bundles of illegally gathered firewood, backs bowed in two, often shoeless. I drive past mansions and see Masai warriors and herds of cows walking along the road in searing red cloth. I blink. Still there. My car attracts scores of badly dressed ragged children and the blind line the streets rattling cups. I open my window. Stupid girl. Watch for your bag, your phone. Close the door.
I see the same sweet 13 year old boy in tattered grey shorts and blue jersey selling ground nuts in translucent paper for ten shillings every day. Sometimes, usually, I give him money and through my car window we strike up a relationship borne of habit. The other day he grinned broadly, "Madam, madam...I have my grades - I had exams." He proceeded to go into a long explanation of which I understood nothing, except he had come 5th out of 32 students.
I was inexplicably proud of him - a poor tall boy in shorts selling nuts until 9 or 10 at night in the dark in a main road, managing to succeed. That's courage. I buy beaded bracelets I neither need nor want because someone needs to buy food that day. I become friends with the old man selling handmade bamboo elephants by the side of the road. The cars continue to honk and scream at me. This is Nairobi.
I can’t walk around at night. I feel trapped. Claustrophic. It’s an irony as the city is lush, green, and abundant but hides menace. I miss concrete pavements, streets, cinemas, boutiques, windy city pathways. Sometimes I even long to board a metro train to be able to speed somewhere, to dash off underground deep into a city and then emerge somewhere new. I am a prisoner to my car.
This brings me to driving. Chaos. No rules. Would closing one’s eyes and stepping on the accelerator be any more dangerous? Will someone explain to me why Kenyans are slow at nearly everything except on the roads? Banks, coffees, shops, talking, cleaning and cooking -nothing is rushed. Driving, however, is akin to being strapped inside a cross between a fairground ride and a missile. It is also, I’ve learnt, a battle of the wills here and a new found trust in a higher protective power.
I came here somewhat on an impulse. I feel denuded, stupid, unschooled in African history, politics, and the names of the different tribes, the nuances of race, religion and class. I picked up the basics enough to nod in the right places and reply in a half -way intelligent conversation - but probe too far and I hesitate. I feel cut off from this society and simultaneously, cut off from my own. I am living in a no-man’s land, not quite part of either and fumbling through this one.
Nairobi. Sometimes leaving the airport you see the lean tall giraffe necks silhouetted against the polluted grey city skyline grazing in the National Park. This city is bizarre, unpredictable, raw, earthy, and often cruel.
The hustle and bustle of parts of the city centre has a whiff of Dickensian London. A bygone era of squalor, dirt, trade hustle and bustle, the reek of food and chaos of an overcrowded urban centre. Disease, poverty, crowds of people eeking a living, the streets a second home to the traders, marketers and hustlers seeking their coin.
Do I like it here? Am I at home? In all honesty, my feelings reflect the city. I love it and hate it. I feel both richer and poorer for being here. I feel at home and alienated.
I feel moments of powerful energy and creativity and simultaneously, ambivalence. Amongst it all I cannot escape a feeling of being watched, of lurking danger and the daily torment of the poor. At times this city whiffs of fast deals, big money and luxury. There is an undercurrent. It may not be spoken of in everyday conversation, but this city has seen extreme violence, bloodshed and retribution as communities rip each other apart. That doesn’t just go away. It simmers, rises and subsides, contaminating the way people react, observe and judge each other.
I can’t pin Nairobi down; I can’t make sense of it nor quite work out where I fit within it. Perhaps that is its secret, to keep people guessing and wondering, what now, what next?
It may be a case of observing and waiting in the wings to see where and how I can play a role. Or perhaps it is a stepping stone which will only make sense sometime in the future.
Nairobi is of course, an easy African city to live in for many reasons. I can buy vegetarian sausages; I can go to the cinema, get my hair done and pick up a sushi take-away. It attracts brilliant eclectic people and adventurers, it nurses entrepreneurialism. All of this, I appreciate.
Yet, it is a city that will continue to shock, surprise and knock you down when you’re least expecting it. After a pause and reflection, it then usually has the grace to gently pick you up to face another day.
Monday 29 March 2010
A Jewish Night in Nairobi....
Sometimes you just have to blog...
Tonight is Seder night. Jewish Easter...so I found the synagogue and headed off in the rain.
Imagine two diminutive red haired beared Rabbis from Brooklyn - tweedle dum and tweedle dee.
In the middle of Nairobi. I felt like I was Alice in the Looking Glass.
Old Jewish men with Kenyan glamorous wives looking decidely uncomfortable over the matzo balls.
Glitzy Jewish mamams, a bunch of rowdy Israelis and too much Kiddush wine.
Plenty of Hebrew songs, the small dwarfish Rabbis on the tables swaying and chanting -the Africans humming along and wondering when they could eat.
Me - in a stupor and laughing as all the food came out. Kfelte fish, chopped liver, chicken soup, salads, five hot dishes - enough to feed a small Jewish African army.
So I joined in, read the English, ate like a hog, marvelled at the old photos post 2nd world war on the synagogue door -the pioneers of old and thought, "tradition"..sometimes you can't beat it.
xxx
Tonight is Seder night. Jewish Easter...so I found the synagogue and headed off in the rain.
Imagine two diminutive red haired beared Rabbis from Brooklyn - tweedle dum and tweedle dee.
In the middle of Nairobi. I felt like I was Alice in the Looking Glass.
Old Jewish men with Kenyan glamorous wives looking decidely uncomfortable over the matzo balls.
Glitzy Jewish mamams, a bunch of rowdy Israelis and too much Kiddush wine.
Plenty of Hebrew songs, the small dwarfish Rabbis on the tables swaying and chanting -the Africans humming along and wondering when they could eat.
Me - in a stupor and laughing as all the food came out. Kfelte fish, chopped liver, chicken soup, salads, five hot dishes - enough to feed a small Jewish African army.
So I joined in, read the English, ate like a hog, marvelled at the old photos post 2nd world war on the synagogue door -the pioneers of old and thought, "tradition"..sometimes you can't beat it.
xxx
Saturday 13 March 2010
A few things
I haven't been feeling much like writing but there are a few touching and funny moments.
Every single day I see the same schoolboy - say around 14 years old - selling nuts for the equivalent of about 10 pence. Sometimes, well, usually, I give him money and through my car window we've struck up a relationship borne of habit.
The other day he grinned "Madame, madame...I have my grades - I had exams." He proceeded to go into a long explanation of which I understood nothing of his school system except he had come 5th out of 32 students.
I was inexplicably proud of him - a poor tall boy in schoolboy shorts selling nuts until 9 or 10 at night in the dark in a main road and he manages to succeed. That's courage.
x
Every single day I see the same schoolboy - say around 14 years old - selling nuts for the equivalent of about 10 pence. Sometimes, well, usually, I give him money and through my car window we've struck up a relationship borne of habit.
The other day he grinned "Madame, madame...I have my grades - I had exams." He proceeded to go into a long explanation of which I understood nothing of his school system except he had come 5th out of 32 students.
I was inexplicably proud of him - a poor tall boy in schoolboy shorts selling nuts until 9 or 10 at night in the dark in a main road and he manages to succeed. That's courage.
x
Sunday 31 January 2010
Fun photos
I've been doing some of the African bush experience.
Yoga on the beach, meditation, mud baths, hippos and crocs (not all in the same spot clearly).
We flew in on a private plane. How damn decadent eh?
xxx
New Year...isn't it?
Happy New Year – resolutions and all…
The photo by the way is from Copenhagen - a very quiet stall myself and a colleague were running...
I got back to hot, sunny Kenya and I apologise for the mammoth silence – it wasn’t that I didn’t want to communicate but I got side tracked by work, work and more work and couldn’t face the computer again at night.
I won’t write retroactively but will start again from here.
The manager on my compound scuttled up to say hello. Perhaps more importantly to tell me my cheque had bounced actually, but let’s not fret over details. “You look different,” he said. Thinking he was going to tell me I looked more rested or well or something I waited expectantly. “You look more red,” he bellowed. “Sorry…?” “Normally you look white, now you look red,” he grinned.
Great. Not sure how to respond, I just smiled and thanked him.
I’ve also discovered why African wear their jeans so tight. I went to a market shopping, big, muddy, chaotic and cheap. You have to buy something. Of course. Racks of new jeans jump out but can one be assed trying them on in the mud. Nah.
So you pick up something you think fits. Don’t most women underestimate the size of their ass? Yup. Point made. You end up pouring yourself into something just a tad too tight. Skinny jeans were born here.
What else? It’s a bit surreal living here. Life. Not sure what it’s all about. Sometimes the lonliness feels like a big well of murky water that will drown me.
Other times I recall feeling like this wherever I lived in the world, but the distractions were more available.
Work is a bit tedious and political. Things still in limbo.
But , oh yes, my new Year’s resolution. New hobbies. Hence, tennis lessons once or twice a week. Loving it. Whacking balls hard. Thwack. Very good for the soul.
Til next time amigos
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