Ants

I regard the ants with a mixture of anger and awe.

Anger- they are everywhere. I have pretty good number sense, and I'm certain there are 900 thousand billion of them living in my kitchen wall. So the smallest bit of available food is instantaneously found, whether it be a grain of rice or a shaving of cheese. Fats and sugars are their favorite (incidentally, they won't touch Blue Band, our strangely-textured margarine substitute... wise ants). I have unfortunately resorted to pesticides of late, and their little melted exoskeletons are stacked half an inch high in places. Like black, leggy snowdrifts.

Awe- they find anything. An unfortunate gecko fell into my bathtub and wiggled off his tail in his panic to escape. Gross all on its own, made more so by the swarm of ants consuming the tail. Even worse: the second trail leading to his still-raw hindquarters.

Anger- Last night, I was going to be responsible and cook instead of going out to eat, until I found that my pasta-straining colander (what's there to eat on a colander?) was covered in ants. I texted my friend back and said, "I take back my no. Need me to drive to the restaurant?"

Awe- how could I have killed so many and yet so many remain?

Anger, and this was the last straw- they got my Nutter Butters! The ones I had been saving for a particularly stressful day (like this one). The package was a peanut-butter-scented ant farm. Everything was reduced to granules, and an intricate tunnel system ran throughout. To add insult to injury, it was all used up; the ants had apparently relocated.

I can't face my kitchen. I wonder what it will do to my budget to not cook for an entire week.

Spring Break can't come soon enough.

More Police Adventures

I generally try not to live in fear. And so, despite my traumatic incident with police checkpoints last summer, I have slowly become more brave regarding them. In fact, this evening as Dalina and I were coming home from dinner, I had to decide which way to head home. Should I pick the longer way with more speedbumps but surely no checkpoints, or the more direct route that includes a checkpoint more often than not? I stoutheartedly chose the latter.

Sure enough, a flashlight was waved my direction, and so I pulled over. Our windows were open (it's hot!), so the policeman felt compelled to talk with us. I felt I was being very culturally appropriate- greeted him, answered his questions, was unintimidated. He glanced at my insurance sticker and asked to see my driver's license. No problem. I have a Kenyan driver's license- a red fold-out affair that states my date of birth as "over 18" and contains possibly the most flattering official photograph ever taken of me. Well, no one glances up at me in horror when they see it, anyway, which is an improvement over my drivers license in the States...

Unfortunately, the little red booklet was in a pocket of my purse I don't use that often, and when the policeman unfolded it, he found a thousand-shilling note tucked inside (basically a $20 bill). Corruption is a huge issue in Kenya; it looked like I was trying to bribe him. Which of course implies that I have something I would need to bribe him for, and assumes he would be interested in taking that bribe. He hands the booklet and the bill back to me and tells me there's some money in there. I am of course terribly embarrassed, and all my cultural awareness flies out the wide-open windows: I thank him profusely, commend him for being honest, and do what I would do in the States- ask for his name so I can tell his supervisor what a good job he has done. He laughs and continues to question me in a very friendly manner, which I interpret as false humility/African relationalness.

Then he asks for my number.

I'm sworn back off police checkpoints.

Reading

Life hasn't been all that publicly exciting lately- plenty going on, but not many bloggable "events." But I suppose one feature of my ordinary life in Kenya is worth discussing...

I've always loved to read. During my childhood, one day a week during the summer was trip-to-the-library day, and the rule was you could only get as many books as you could carry on the walk home. Our little arms would get so tired! But I distinctly recall the significant breakthrough when we discovered that we could bring our little red wagon and load it up with books each week for the trip home. One person's job was to pull the wagon, and the other person would make sure the books didn't fall out, for they were definitely piled to overflowing. Then we would switch for fairness, of course- Ben and I were all about good division of labor.

In elementary school, I was that kid who would walk down the hallway reading a paperback while the troublemakers tried trip me by putting backpacks in my path. But of course I would suavely step over the obstacle; I have excellent peripheral vision. Possibly because I was always observing life from behind a book. Hm. Anyhow, when I REALLY got in trouble as a child, my parents would ground me from reading- I was not allowed to read anything beyond what was required for school. It was torture, and I suppose it's time to confess that I would often hide a book in my towel on the way to the bathroom, turn on the shower, and read on the sly. Now that I live in a place with a water shortage, I am ashamed, but at the time, it seemed extremely necessary.

But life got busy, and by the time I was in late high school, I didn't have time to read for pleasure anymore. Life was packed with music and friends and academics and church, and there just wasn't the space to read. College and early adulthood continued this trend; textbooks gave way to grading papers, and I rarely just read.

Then I moved to Kenya. One of the biggest adjustments was the amount of down time here- fewer established relationships, no evening activities, lighter teaching load. And just when I thought that my schedule was unbearably empty, I got the mumps and was house/hospitalbound for a good 6 weeks.

So I rediscovered reading. Friends lent books or went to the school library on my behalf. I read The Secret Life of Bees, the first two Eragon books, The Power of One, Stardust, Dune, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and countless others. And in this post-mump year, I've continued to read regularly, and while I don't take in nearly the volume that I did while I was sick (or while I was in elementary school), I've enjoyed my rediscovered reading habit.

Another Gac characteristic is the desire to be undefinable- to have such a diversity of ideas that no one can really say they fully know you. That's probably worth it's own blog post and several months of therapy, but here it relates to my post-Christmas book choices: A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson- humorous, irreverent, environmentalist anecdotes about hiking the Appalachian Trail), Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novel about African life before/during/after colonization) and Musicophilia (Oliver Sacks, a neurologist who writes fascinating non-fiction, in this case about the brain's responses and misresponses to music).

So what I need is more options! Suggestions I might be able to find at our school library? Used books you're excited to send me? My small bookshelf is slowly becoming populated, but it could use some help... What do you say?

Anything Can Be Pirated. Anything.

About once a week I eat at Diamond Plaza, a haven for cheap Indian food and for all things pirated. This treasure was discovered a few months ago, and it was quite worth the $3...