Acclimation

Ninakaa Karen. I stay in Karen, if you've been reading my blog, you probably already knew this, but I mention it because it's actually beginning to feel true and it leads me to an interesting point. Most Kenyans, especially those living in and around Nairobi make a sharp distinction between where they stay, and where they live. To this end there are actually three verbs to describe one's place of residence. When introducing myself I get to take full advantage of this nomenclature, Ninakaa Karen (i stay in Karen) lakini ninatoka Kalamazoo (but I come from Kalamazoo) na ninaishi Boston (and I live/my family comes from Boston).

At this point I'm actually beginning to feel as if I am no longer a tourist. Although most cab drivers start yelling at me to go home with them from twenty paces, (at 10-15 times the price of the matatu) the matatatus don't try to screw with me, and I know enough about prices to realize it. To a certain extent I recognize prices without having to recalculate into dollars (to a certain extent I do it automatically, 95:1 is easy to estimate) and I'm increasingly comfortable with Kenyan food, (to a certain extent I liked it from the start) and I know enough Swahili to say a little about myself and my day.

I titled this post Acclimation, because I realized during my run today, that I did the same 10K loop from my last mini-post in about 46min, and I realized that my cardiovascular systems had adjusted such that I am about back to where I was stateside. This revelation then morphed into: for only really having been here a week , I feel comfortable here. Certainly Kenya is not the same as the US, but Kenya is not entirely the worse for it, and in some aspects of everyday life, their standards make more sense. You don't tip wait staff implicitly, sure they'll accept a tip, but it's their job to bring you your food. Despite the local embrace of passive voice in English, their verb choice is anything but; you say "give me chips," not "I can I have some chips," nor are you expected to thank the Matatu driver for bringing you home, or anyone for doing any kind of business with you. The economist inside me appreciates all of this, to a certain extent everything is just a transaction to most people, but instead of making people calloused, it means that people actually hear you when you say "Asante sana" (thanks much) and people appreciate the gesture, instead of doubting it.

On a separate but related note, there is a lot to like about the Nairobi nightlife. People go to clubs to dance, which as obvious as it may sound, is a welcome change from K college parties (the majority of my basis for comparison) or concerts (the remainder of my basis), where it can often seem that dancing is just a byproduct of the nights other aims. To paraphrase my notes about Kenyan culture thus far I would say, (pardon my french) Kenyans cut through the bullshit, and as a result everyone seems more genuine.

Tomorrow, I leave for Mombasa till Thursday or Friday, for what we have been told will be Swahili boot camp, but also awesome, and beautiful in a couple different senses. Evidently the locals speak Swahili exclusively in Mombasa (in contrast to Nairobi, where you could speak none and get by fine). I have been informed that Mombasa has the second largest coral in the world, (after the Great Barrier Reef) and that we will be staying at an all inclusive resort, paid for by tuition as there was a little left over after the extremely exchange-ratey costs of tuition. Speaking of which, I count this not lightly amongst the reasons why Kenya has been a good choice, instead of scraping together money for food as some of my friends in Europe have been complaning about, we are all literally shillionares here (and that is just by converting our stipends). I'm having a great time and although it's certainly not home, I'm so very happy to be here.