Ever since we came to the new place, I have been complaining about the bat turds that appear on the sofas, the kitchen counter, everywhere. I haven’t actually seen any bats in the house (unlike the last place) so I couldn’t figure out when this was happening. Patrick insisted that it was gecko poop, but I am SURE that the poop I was finding was way too big to come out of a tiny gecko butt. Today we found the culprit. Patrick yelled for me to bring the camera and he pointed to the gap between the freezer and the wall in the pantry, warning me that “it was big – over a foot”. I was expecting a new kind of insect and jumped away nearly dropping the camera when I saw an 18 inch lizard staring back at me. Yeeeesh - at least he looks big enough to actually eat the cockroaches. I think we will let him stay!
30JAN2007
There is a CDC team here tracking down cases of Rift Valley Fever. They are checking out any suspicious deaths, sometimes traveling hours into the bush to do autopsies and test cattle. I’m not sure what their action plan is when they find a case and I can’t decide if it is reassuring or a bit scary that CDC is paying attention...
Today we got a lift with a KEMRI vehicle into Mombasa. First we stopped at the Kenyan Revenue Authority to try and transfer our car registration into our name. There were people milling around everywhere and only about half seemed like they actually had business there. We stopped at the customer service desk, told the attendant what we needed, and asked which window we should go to. She suggested that we start with the first one ☺. So, we started at the first (of 10) windows. I was bracing myself for a very long afternoon, fully anticipating that we would have to work our way through each line one at a time, only to eventually learn that we did not have the right form or something. Patrick said it reminded him of the DC building permit office, except no A/C. For some reason people seemed to think that the line would move faster if they pushed from behind. We got to the window after about 10 minutes. The clerk looked at our paperwork and declared: “Ah, Patrick, I remember you,” looking up with a big smile, “I was searching for a logbook for your truck that got lost!” (each vehicle has a small cardboard ‘logbook’ that defines its owner, kind of like a pink slip) We were a little confused. Patrick hesitantly suggested that maybe it was another Patrick, not wanting to get on his bad side. “No, no, I remember - yes it’s you, Patrick Ohmaaara.” “Umm, I don’t think so.” “Yes, yes, from Kilifi!” he said definitively. “From the Kilifi side or the Mnarani side?,” Patrick queried (why does that matter I wondered??). “The Mnarani side…maybe it’s a different one.” “Yeah, I think so – I do not have a truck.” “Ok, if you see him, give him my phone number,” he said, slapping a post it note on our paperwork. “Okay…” “Don’t forget, tell Patrick to call me at this number.” “Right, right - I’ll give it to him as soon as I see him.” Because, obviously, all mzungus know each other, right?...It turns out that we were missing one document, so we couldn’t finish the transfer today, but we wasted FAR less time than either of us anticipated.
Our first stop on the drive home was to get gasoline. We decided to splurge and put in 1,000 KSh, about 15 dollars. At >70 Ksh per liter (that is $1/liter or ~$4/gallon), this seemed like enough. We were alarmed when the gas gauge barely moved as we pulled out of the gas station. I asked Patrick if he had checked to confirm that she (first female gas attendant I have met) actually put 1000 bob in the tank. He wasn’t sure, maybe it was only 100… We turned back around into the gas station to sort this out! As we pulled in we realized that we were idiots, and we had only put in 13 liters which is like 3 gallons. Of course it barely registered in our big tank of a car. We had to put in a little more in order to make it back to Kilifi. Crazy wazungus!
On our way back to Kilifi, we stopped at the Nakumat, which is like the Kenyan equivalent of Wal-Mart. You can buy anything there. For example, we bought camping gas, dog food, beer, and Camembert cheese. Correction- the only thing you can’t buy there is dark chocolate. Not a single piece of dark chocolate, anything covered in dark chocolate, dark chocolate in the middle of something else, nothing! Next door to Nakumat is a ‘Books First’ store, which is like a Kenyan Barnes & Noble. They have great espresso, coffee to go, ice cream and beer (ok, maybe even better than Barnes & Noble!) They had a decent, but very random selection of books, many used, and all very dusty and hand-wrapped in plastic.
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