19th Aug

19th August

So i am writing this blog on my bed in keareas, Erins and my Kenyan hotel room. We are at a hotel called ‘Jamboree’ right on the Indian ocean coastline –seriously, we can hear the water and see it (100 yards) from our room. We have a TV, fridge, shower room (only cold water though) and a lovely balcony on which we can sit and watch events below, and most importantly the view from this balcony is just beautiful.
Mombasa is a dirty, busy, traffic jammed city, but it is HOT here and gals going to sit on the beach and get a wicked tan, drink water, eat fruit and read.
The room is reasonably priced also! 4000 Kenyan bob (seriously, bob is the tender here!) between three of us a day, so for four nights that is equivalent to about £50 for four nights. I don’t think that you guys really want to hear any more about the hotel and so I want to discuss a couple of things both are relating to Kenyan culture.

I am Nigerian by blood but born and breed in the UK, here in Kenya people think I’m Kenyan, I guess me wearing Kenyan clothes doesn’t help the matter. In particular Kenyan people tend to think that I am from a tribe called ‘Luo’. In the beginning this was amusing, now it’s bloody annoying, especially since neither pretending to be luo nor actually confessing to being British Nigerian helps me one bit.
I am finding it a tad bit difficult to socialise with the Kenyan youngsters here. Not the ones in the orphanage but the Kenyans who are taken on trips etc with the charity. Its kind of like in London but different, Il explain, I guess in London I feel sometimes that my old look (i have hair now) didn’t go down with –not all black people but especially Nigerians and West Indian people, especially straight ones. Being gay can be hard, being black and gay can be tough, but being female, black and gay is a tricky one. Fortunately, I am out and couldn’t really care less who is aware of my sexuality, it’s not really there in peoples faces but it isn’t hidden either. Through the years I’ve battled with not really, feeling Nigerian or more really at one with my culture. I resent mostly the look that Nigerian women and men find attractive, long nails, big ole weave, the tight non traditional clothing, ergh everything, i feel that it is all fake and I guess that I try my very very best to err towards looking nothing like that. Coming to Kenya, although it not being Nigeria was a chance for me to be immersed in an African society, to see how my people live, work and play. In some ways I have been really impressed and in other ways deeply disappointed.
A lot of the women here stare at me. In the village the women wear traditional clothing, really beautiful African clothing that I looove. I hadn’t bought any traditional clothing yet so when I was out and about in the village I was wearing my Primark linen and I guess the women were confused to why this “Luo” looking girl was wearing western clothing. That staring I kind of get. Here however the women were really friendly, and to be honest, I have got mostly nothing but love from my village women.
In Nairobi and Mombasa different story mate. The women stare still but I know that it’s a competition and hierarchy thing. Now that I have some African clothing, I wear them and am creating confusion again. In Nairobi, the women wear ‘western clothing’ not to be rude but if ya think of the really cheap stuff that you can get in East street market that is what the ‘trendy girls’ wear and the older women with jobs all wear these eighties two piece suits (that i do actually, love, I love a shoulder padded number!) I aint judging, I just found it fucking irritating that they look down at me cause I’m wearing ‘village’ clothes when they are all wearing eighties throw backs. Seriously, I thought people stared in London but people do sure stare, almost stop what they’re doing, tumble weed moments in Nairobi. And, when I open my mouth confusion city!! Strange though, one would have thought that people would think that I am a Kenyan who has studied in Europe , hence my accent but they truly the people here can’t put two and two together.
So the Kenyan girls at the Nairobi house won’t talk to me, to be honest I am not really bothered, i am more disappointed. Kerea reckons that they are shy, I don’t think so as shy people don’t say hello to everybody, not one person.
In the village, I was inspiring the girls to stay in school, not get pregnant use condoms etc. Life is wicked in the village ya know. The young girls would come and chat with me at the hospital and ask me how they can become Drs, ok, they don’t all warm to me has they can’t work out how I managed to become a female Dr not a female nurse but after that its fine. Ergh here in the city the girls are just plain rude. Many times I’ve entered a room with keara and the girls make every effort to talk to her and frankly the conversation is quite mundane. The situation kind of has echoes of the men in the village, who see a white face and stop what they are doing to make a bee line to the poor muzongo and chat incessant rubbish. The girls here do the same to Kearea. She says that I’m too cynical, however, I think life through a black person’s eye and a white person’s eye is so different. As a white person in Kenya life is easy, you are bound to get ripped off, but at least the residents make an effort, notice you, a matatu will always stop for you, the men will talk to you and things seem to run a bit smoother. As a Kenyan women, you are not seen, the residents will always talk to the muzongo rather than you. So many times I have been totally ignored in conversations; until I open my mouth I don’t exist.
I hate City life I think. Seriously, Nairobi is stuck in the mid eighties and is dirty man, dust is everywhere, it is not like in the village where people stop and talk to one another, I guess the culture here reminds me of London a bit, I’m a village girl, i like my own space, my African clothes and the freedom to do what I want without the fear of being robbed.
Although in the centre of Nairobi, keara took me to a starbucks-like coffee house called java, I had the most delicious latte in the whole wide world –yummy, but have been paying for the treat since -lets just say my poo bag is my best friend lol.

Secondly, I am sad to say that deceit appears to be ingrained in Kenyan culture here. In every single situation that I have been in, alone or with friends, the Kenyan people have tried to rip us off. What we have realised thou is not to take this trend personally, but see it as a sad aspect of the Kenyan society. Oh dear I’ve been pretty down on Kenyans in the last few blogs, I did go to a beautiful part of Mombasa today , called ‘old town’ and I had a fabulous day! Life in Mombasa is totally different to that in Nairobi and I will go into more depth about some of the positive observations that I made today in the next blog (just so you don’t think that I’m totally negative yikes).
So back to deceit, after speaking to well travelled people back in the UK, I was expecting to have to barter and perhaps pay foreigner prices for goods here in Kenya BUT nobody prepared me for what I have experienced. I think it’ll be hard for me actually describe, the way of purchasing life here, but if I give a few examples of situations that I’ve been in then may be the picture will illustrate itself.
So like I said here in Kenya white skin is associated with wealth, and if you’re not from town, suddenly the price of goods goes up. My first experience of being ripped off was in a matatu (bus) on the way to the hospital on my second day. The conductor (hold on, let me just describe these buses, they are actually 10, 14 or 7 seater, purpose build van/bus things –just type the name in google. There is a driver, and a conductor type man who tells the driver when to stop by banging a coin on the steel door. The conductor is usually an untrained local, who makes a bit of extra cash with this job. The driver is an accredited driver, BUT many times these drivers are in various states of fitness, from drunk, visually impaired, maybe deaf and they will not hesitate to use their phone to make a call or text whilst driving on Kenyas notoriously bad pot holed roads. To make matters worse at night, they only put on their headlights –if they work, to signal to other drivers that they are approaching. Matatus often race each other and although they are only legally meant to take the number of people stated on the side, they will cram the bus full of people, two to a seat, with some men hitching a ride by clinging onto the side of the bus. Many a time I have sat next to live stock –chickens and the odd baby goat, which funnily enough are really well behaved! The decor in these buses varies, from leather seats and padded carpeted roofs, and an inside tv usually blasting Christian gospel music to the max, to ranshackle-i-think-this-bus-is-gonna-collaspe-like-a-matchstickhouse-in-any-minute condition. Accidents happen but touch wood, I’ve been fine)
Ah I’ve gone off point but what I was saying that the fare to the hospital is 50 bob and it is advisable to have the change to hand, so I did and the cheeky conductor was like that’s 80bob for you and I was like, er, no its fifty I KNOW IT IS FIFTY HERE IS FIFTY, TAKE IT OR LET ME OFF. Needless to say the guy knew that I knew he was trying to rip me off and so took the money and mumbled something in Swahili. These has happened to me a few times, and luckily I know the cost of the distances that I travel but its tiring having to barter down to a price that trips are allocated anyway.
The worse occasion was when I was in Kisumu with odongo (our Kenyan rep here in Siaya) and some others, the waiter actually asked odongo in Swahili, if he would help them rip us off. When Odongo refused he was called a Mazongo lover, this pissed me off cos it was the same waiter that was trying to be really friendly to us and generate crap convo with us –moron. At this same restaurant, we weren’t given certain parts of our food despite the menu stated that our meals were accompanied with these foods. When we complained they bought the food out half an hour later and then charged us for the stated side dish. Our bill was also incorrectly added up –something that seems to be a trend if you order lots in a group.
On another occasion we had pre booked a man with a van to be our transport for the day, we had agreed a price and everything was honkadory, except when it came to midday the man with the van claimed that the booking was for half a day and insisted that this arrangement was made clear with the person on the phone that he had spoke to. We knew he was lying because we got a Kenyan to book him cos we knew that we would get a fair price if a Kenyan dealt with a Kenyan, and we were all present in the room and so he was lying. Ergh
I just remembered that the first time I was asked for money was at the airport in Nairobi, where I was waiting in a really long line to get a Kenyan visa and I was resigned to waiting and decided to read my book. Some women with a badge (official looking) asked me if I would like to go to a shorter queue. Lovely, I thought, as she took my passport and claimed to be checking that I filled the form out correctly. She took me to another visa checkpoint and yeah so I had 4 people in front of me instead of 60. I thanked her, and seeing as she seemed to be airport staff i expected her to jog on. Nope she asked for some money, err NO i replied and she left. She was doing her job and then asking for money for it. This is something which baffles me about life here, if anybody helps you in anyway they expect a tip??? This makes me suspicious of asking anyone for help!
Dya know what I could give quite a few more examples but I have realised that what I write could be controversial and as much as I love controversies im still under the care of the charity and so will write blog the after stuff after.
What Ive taken to doing now is not opening myy mouth when I buy things, looking like a luo has its advantages, Kenyans tend to hold up the itme that they want, and expect the vendor to say the price. And so buy doing this I get a fair price. If I actually ask the for the price in my English accent, (which everyone thinks is USA) then I get a heavily inflated answer. For example sugar cane canes, uncut are 12bob, skinned and cut into chucks they are 20bob, the first time we bought sugar can we were charged 50 bob. When we returned the next day to buy more sugar cane knowing the correct price the vendor refused to sell us the cane at the correct price, and waved us away!! As in they would rather not sell us their goods than sell us it too us at the correct price.
One time I bought a avocado for 10 bob after not saying a word and just holding it up. Afterwards I said in the strongest US accent I could ‘Thanx a lot mate’ and the guy was gutted!!! Hahahaha.
Hey it’s not that I don’t want to give any Kenyan some extra money as to be honest we are still paying not very much for some of these goods, compared to prices in the UK the only problem is just that if they were honest with me id give them the correct price and some but its after the theatrical performance of calling me sister, trying to converse with me and being my friend then ripping me off like a fucker. Or its when I’ve spent twenty minutes discussing the fact that im not Kenyan, that im a uk born Nigerian, studying medicine, here on elective, and yes im married and no I don’t wanna meet your son and then they try to rip me off! Lol. Its all funny now, but I took it quite personally for a while.
I guess I give you more meaty examples when Im coming to the end of this elective!