kenya meets norway

In the doghouse.

Saturday morning I went for my first run in Kenya, with my co-worker Matt. As we jogged by him, Hamasi, a neighborhood boy, decided to tag along (picture on the right, a photo taken for my housemate Melissa who is from Pittsburgh and enjoyed his jersey). If you ever start thinking you're a great runner and need a reality check, you should fly out to Bungoma and join us. Hamasi easily kept pace with us the entire time, hopping along the railroad track in flip flops. Still it was a fun run, encouraged by friendly waves and cheers of "Obama's people!"

We departed at around 5 pm for Busia, a town that spans the border between Kenya and Uganda. After about an hour and a half of an exciting ride (highlights included a capella singing of "Sweet Child of Mine") we arrived at the house of a group of girls who are staffed there for an a medical program that deals with the spread of AIDS.

We had a fabulous dinner. I can't remember the names for all the dishes - I struggled enough with the new people! - but there were chips (fries), chicken, lots of beans, a tomato/onion dish, some greens... Enough to induce a serious food coma. And my meal, including two beers, came to about 4 US dollars.

Afterward we continued the weekend streak with a night at a club in Busia. Again it was fun, although Kenyan men can be a bit aggressive and the music had to be turned way down at midnight due to complaints about the noise. We headed back to the girls' house, where I was one of the few who got a place in a bed; most of the group ended up sprawled across the floor until the next morning.

Sunday was a jam-packed day: 2 hours of ultimate frisbee in the morning in a nearby town called Kakamega, with a couple who had both played for Stanford (I'm going to be a pro when I return!); a trip to the supermarket to stock up for the evening potato-themed potluck; a tea and pie session with a Portuguese girl staffed in Bungoma and a couple OAF girls; and finally a several hour long preparation of my selected potato-themed dish, lefse.

From my memories of making it at home, lefse is already not the easiest dish to whip up even in the States. In Kenya it presented serious difficulties - nowhere cold to cool the dough, no running water to wash surfaces or rinse utensils, a single too-small frying pan, a wine bottle instead of a rolling pin. But I am happy and proud to say that I managed to get enough lefse pieces to turn out relatively well that everyone got a piece to try. Sure, it was a little crispy and too thick, but it looked and tasted about right otherwise and people complimented me (although it might have been my persistence that garnered the compliments more than the actual result).

Side note: While it can result in some tasty and creative dishes, if you are asked to choose a theme for a potluck, selecting a single starchy vegetable might not be the best idea. I think quite a few of us fell asleep feeling a bit ill, and even today when a group of us went out to lunch for goat and ugali (maize mush, sort of) our appetites were still at half-mast.