The next day Junior and I went into town again, but mostly just to look around. We stopped by the school to see Mama Patrick then headed out to Junior's school to see if anything was going on. Junior's been out of school since I got here because he had mid-terms last week, so apparently he is out of school until Tuesday. Heading up to Junior's school was my first time in one of the really small, impossibly packed matatus. They are basically a van with a sliding door that could comfortably fit 6 or 7 people. The thing about them is they put 14 or 15 people in there. All of a sudden having 7 college kids pile into a Honda Accord to go get burgers doesn't seem quite so impressive. We wandered around town some more and got chips for lunch again at the same place. The novelty of Fanta in a glass bottle is still not even close to wearing off. Before we headed home we headed to a "video store" to pick up some movies to watch on my laptop. The video store was a packed stall in a corner with a bunch of wooden cubbies all containing stacks of DVD's. Everything was burned onto disks, and I must say the selection was pretty impressive. You would tell one of the girls working behind the counter what movies you were looking for and they would go sift through their stacks of disks until they found what you wanted, including some movies that hadn't come out in the US yet. On our way home we stopped off at the sprawling market near their house. Nairobi has a diverse mix of roadside stalls and vendors, established businesses, and about every shade in between. I had told Junior that I wanted to look at soccer jerseys – no, excuse me, football jerseys (you can talk about "American football" over here if you want, but most people won't know what you're talking about any more than Americans know about cricket or rugby) so we walked through the market to get to a vendor Junior knew would be selling them. The cramped market reminded me of night markets in Taiwan, where you could buy just about anything you wanted (and a lot of stuff you didn't) from any one of hundreds of rickety looking wooden stalls. The walkway through was only about 3 or 4 feet wide, which made me pretty worried about getting pick-pocketed, so I tried to be careful as we walked through. After walking a surprisingly long distance the market opened up onto some train tracks. Here the market stalls stopped, but others stood out on the tracks selling things, while other seemed to just be standing and chatting. I asked Junior if trains came through regularly, and he said they did; people would get out of the way when they needed to. Even then, there couldn't have been more than 20 feet from the stalls to the tracks. On our way back through we heard the horn blaring of a train coming through, and I almost wished I was there to see everyone scrambling to move, but it was definitely for the better to be safely out of harm's way, especially considering the significant disparity I am beginning to appreciate between my idea of "out of harm's way" and the typical Kenyan ideology. Once we arrived at the stall we checked out some Premier League jerseys, and a Kenyan national team jersey also caught my jersey. Junior asked about the price, and after jabbering with the man who had been watching attentively (Americans are good for business because they have lots of money and tend to be pretty careless about spending it. At least that's my perception of the Kenyan perception of Americans) informed the price of 1500 schillings (about $16) was too high and we'd find a better deal somewhere else. I really want to get a Kenyan national team jersey now though, and I saw a Kenyan rugby jersey and I really want one of those too. Am I just another one of those Americans spending a lot of money? Ah, that's neither here nor there. We went to meet Flo and do some grocery shopping then come home, and I fell asleep both going there and coming back. Maybe I'm still getting used to the time change, but I've been pretty tired for a lot of the time since being here. On our way back from the market we took a 3 wheeled taxi called a "tuk tuk" (pronounced "took took") that adds to the diversity of the fleet of vehicles and humanity that cover the roads. Believe it or not it was actually bumpier than most matatus. I think when I get back to the States, every car ride is going to feel like I'm floating on air. At one point we got stopped in traffic, and the driver swung off the road onto the dirt shoulder with no hesitation and motored down the shoulder for about 40 yards before turning in to our neighborhood. The traffic laws here are as ineffective at keeping order on the road as the numerous speed bumps. When we got home I slept until dinner and then went to bed again right after dinner. I felt bad about not hanging out more, especially because Miriam and Mama are both gone for the whole day and evening is about the only time to see them, but I was a walking zombie at that point, plus the weekend is upon us so I'll get to see more of them anyway.
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