I must say, I have missed blogging.  I think the break is enough now.  I’ve got the flu again.  It feels like my head is in a bucket.  I’m love struck.  Yup.  That three months pregnant happy glow?  Yeah I’ve got that glow without the pregnancy.  I’m glowing.  But like I said before, its a glow that has notes of sadness in it.  But anyway, I just can’t seem to get my head down to concentrate on stuff I need to be doing.  I think it may be signs of burn out that I really don’t need right now.  I just need to shake it off and do what needs to be done.  Worse still, the other day someone said to me “it must be sad to see your country war torn”.  I just stood there in disbelief.  My country, war torn?  Did war and Kenya just get put in the same sentence?  It’s always been, yeah there’s a bit of unrest, but this “little bit of unrest” just seems to be getting greater by the day.  And so everything else just seems so mundane.  I mean what do I have to complain about?  My flu?   Too many assignments?  Well thats seems so useless compared to people loosing lives, homes, property, basically everything.  So between my sneezes, I shall pray.  I shall send up as many prayers that I can.  I feel completely useless from here, but I can pray.

God bless Kenya

I wish it didn’t have to be quite so hard. I miss him. There isn’t much we can do about it and we’re both wise enough to figure that with him there and me here it can’t work and it would be torture for nothing. But this is torture. It’s been a few years since I saw him, but still he’s still the easiest person for me to be around. He still knows me. Knows that I blush. Knows that I have a killer pride sometimes – and knows how to get around it! It was as if we both hadn’t gone anywhere for all this time. The way he reached for my hand was still the same. All the little things, – they were all the same. The smell that belongs to him, the way he acts all protective over me. It just came all back.

So we decided to let go…for now. But everything is so raw and so fresh and all the feelings and the giddy emotions are still with me. I haven’t been able erase all the texts off my phone. Everything somehow reminds me of him. I guess it’ll get better, but right now it doesn’t feel too good…

rant on…

So I’m back in Finland.  Yes blogging has gone a bit dead for me.  With being an intern and running around the Kenyan countryside to places with phone network, let alone internet, blogging became a rumour.  But maybe I’m back, well almost, well until my blogging mojo gets back to where it used to be.  I’m not quite there yet truth be told.

So, Kenya was great apart from the last like 2 weeks of my stay there.  One of which was spent in what felt like house arrest.  Honestly, I am so pissed with everything, with the lie in what we thought was democracy, with the leaders, no scratch that, politicians who have nobody else’s interests at heart but their own.  I’m sick of them all.  I’m sick of seeing my country on international news up there right next to Iraq and Pakistan.  I’m sick of things like “killing fields”, “genocide” and all the other morbid words being used in reference to my country.  I’m sick of it all.   I hate the violence, I hate the tribalism, I hate what we’ve all been reduced to.  And yes, as much as I blame our good for nothing politicians, I blame us.  I blame that person who goes on to burn someone’s kiosk, who goes on to loot, who goes on to raise a finger to a person of another tribe!  I blame that person almost as much as I blame the politicians.  These politicians who will never care about their people – clearly they don’t if they can sit and watch or sit and use their nation as sacrificial lambs all for the sake of this “power” that seems to have totally possessed them!  It’s disgusting!!

waiting for the dust to settle

The worst thing ever is a Monday morning in the office suffering from lack of sleep and still feeling the hangover from a rough Saturday!!  When I say I don’t drink tequila…I know why!!  One shot had me sick for the whole darn weekend.  Plus you were traveling the next day – Sunday…. Oh and you’ve got bruises you have no idea where you got them from. Worse still is knowing you had a fight with someone special…well things that you did feel but don’t talk about them or bring them up because that’s just how you are…and the trust issues come out and all the rest of it…and you wish you hadn’t started it.  Because that is exactly the reason why you didn’t want to start it in the first place – you didn’t want to get into the fighting and exchanging words and all the tears, hate and anger!  And you wonder what it’s all about.  And you can’t reverse it and now you have to spend an eternity trying to explain what you meant by all that and why you feel like you do…its just better left unsaid sometimes.  But it’s done!  I wish it wasn’t, but it is.  It was just one of those weekends that had enough happenings to write a whole book!!  So I guess the wait to see what happens now begins…the worst bit…that calm after the storm.  When there is all this smoke and dust and you just have to wait for it all to settle so you can see just how much damage there is.  When there is this silence that is deafening and your heartbeat sounds unnaturally loud in your ears and this feeling of impending doom washes over you, but there is nothing more you can do but just stand there all alone and wait.

random

This is a really really cool site…ever since I could, I’ve been popping bubble wrap…its therapeutic so this site makes life in an office a little more bearable!!  Just came back from the field:

Why do only white people have really cool lodges?

I was told of this woman who was killed by an elephant, then eaten by a lion and all they found of her was beads because the hyena’s had taken off with her bones…cringe!!

How come I always get everyone’s flu?

How come in funny cheap hotels when you ask for lemon tea they boil the lemon in the tea for soooo damn long it becomes pungent and undrinkable?

How come cheap hotels have no sense of colour scheming?

I really wonder what it feels like to be not able to read!?

How come people don’t clean up stuff around their homes?  Walking through garbage everyday as I step into my home doesn’t seem too cool to me!

Where do the beads maasai’s use come from?

Why is Kenyan food so boring?  Well apart from the coast.

How come people build their houses squiff?  Can’t they see?

Why do humans have to be so darn complex?

I just found out there are only 12 lions in the nairobi national park!  12!!!  seriously!! (a la greys anatomy)

Boy does time fly.  It’s been almost a month since I blogged!  So much has been going on though.  I am loving my internship.  Despite the times I feel like I could just drop from exhaustion, I love it.  I get to go out into the field which is totally what I love.  Don’t have to sit in the office from 8 to 5 every day.  It’s fabulous.  So far I’ve been to Laikipia, nyeri, nanyuki, amboseli, namanga.  Not just to these places but all around them.  To places where there is no network apart from the few and far between hot spots that you may find.  You will know coz you find a whole group of people huddled around a rock trying to catch network and when they do you move your head to the phone not the other way round.  It’s hilarious.  I have slept in missions because there is nowhere else to sleep in some of these places, eaten at places where a full meal for six – including soup costs 300 bob…yes thats for everyone and everything.  I have been hit on by moraans.  Tried on the full beaded neck piece (those things are heavy!!!!).  I have learnt a few maasai words, learnt to deal with consultants, bargained for goats, fought for women to be included in meetings…all in all its been a great experience.  Of course had a little break with the folks, drove to arusha, then to dar then took the ferry to zanzibar and back again.  It was great to see the country side…its all so different from Kenya and they have a really different mentality.

Other than that, not much time for my social life, but the little time there is, the berry man is always there.  And why when you don’t really want anything serious thats when all these people come around?  And why do I feel a bit far removed from issues around me?  And how come there is no feelings of hate where I thought there would be?  And why do I keep dreaming about baby elephants?

I…

I miss living by myself.  I miss doing what I want, when I want to, how I want to.

I hate Kenyan transport, roads, traffic, traffic cops – it just makes getting around too much of an effort when it shouldn’t have to be!!!

I decided I really like elephants!

I am convinced I get abducted by aliens in my sleep…how else would you explain all the bruises I wake up with in the morning!

I am falling in like!

I miss the sun from my windowless work station!

I am rather happy with me at the moment – its a content feeling

I really like the color yellow

I have never been to Uhuru park and its on my to do list for whats left of the year

I don’t like pedicures….they are waaaay too ticklish!

I lost my favorite nail file

yellow…

First thing’s first….I love yellow by coldplay! It has got to be one of my all time favorites ever!!

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah they were all Yellow

I came along
I wrote a song for you
and all the things you do
And it was called Yellow

So then I took my turn
Oh what a thing to’ve done
And it was all Yellow

You’re skin
Oh yeah you’re skin and bones
Turned into something beautiful
You know
You know I love you so
You know I love you so

I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
Cuz you were all Yellow

I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
Well it was all Yellow

You’re skin
Oh yeah you’re skin and bones
Turned into something beautiful
You know
For you I’d bleed myself dry
For you I’d bleed myself dry

It’s true
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for…
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine…

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And all the things that you do

…..gorgeous!! “for you I’d bleed myself dry!”…sigh!! Anyway, so this here missy has been doing a bit of travel over the past couple of days. Been to Tanzania…the scenery is brilliant. But strange how so many things are from Kenya…brookside, farmers choice, toothpicks, air freshener! Went to a place 200kms south west from Arusha called Babati. So there is one road from Arusha to Dodoma and thats the road we took to Babati. So after about 140kms from Arusha, the tarmac just ends. Like with no warning or anything, it literally just ends! And from that point on, the next 60kms to Babati has no road! It was better to actually drive off the road than on what is supposed to be the road! Unbelievable. Oh and I have never seen so many field mice in my whole entire life! They were just dashing all over the road. It was so random.

Anyway, so Babati is cool and we stopped to by some local rice at a little town centre known for rice, I think it was called Magugu or something to that effect…I don’t remember for sure. Anyway, there were all these little Kids who got all excited by shaking my hand, so we bought them all lollipops from the local shop…you know the ones with the whistles on the stick and they all went running off blowing their little lungs out on the whistles and the whole centre all of a sudden was full of the sound of lollipop whistles. It was so adorable.

So then at the Namanga border, we stopped to change our thousands of Tanzanian shillings into normal Kenyan shillings…(man there went the feeling of being super rich)!! Anyway, so we got talking to the shop dude and he was saying how he has a daughter in the UK and so when someone asked what she does, he replies “oh she’s married”. Ok, so since when does being married become a “what I do”? Like… what do you do? Oh, I’m married!…uhm…ok! Random right there!

Then I wonder…because I can only wonder. When I look around the office, there are very decent looking females….who then leaves the bathroom in a mess? I just don’t understand!!!

So this is me between work. I am taking a 10 minute break by force!! My posts have slowly been getting shorter and more mundane. Probably because work is keeping me all nice and busy. I enjoy it apart from the random day where the IT department decides to be useless, that coupled with PMS, yes PMS is a reality and its a force to be reckoned with!! Oh and of course eating away into my social life. Although a certain mr. Person is definitely the sweetest person this side of things! Teenager heart flutters anyone?? Now why oh why can life not feel like this all the time?? Sigh!

So…has anyone been to the food court at village market on a friday evening when that dude from them mushrooms…you remember them…the dude with the long dreads?…yeah he plays on Fridays at the village. There are always random people dancing under the influence and its simply hilarious. One night this dude had to drag his wife/girlfriend/clande off the dance floor. When I say drag her off, don’t be led into thinking that she was dancing! Oh no! More like she was throwing her limbs all over the place! Anyway, its just funny.

My love for Kidum’s music still exists and apparently he plays on Wednesdays now at club afrique or galileo’s…don’t know which, one of the two. That shall be my next plan. As soon as I come back from the bundus. Other than that, my mum has worn Anais Anais ever since I can remember. I did not know it, but it was actually named after Anais Nin who’s writings, I have become to really enjoy. She was a writer and diarist born in Paris and was probably one of if not the first prominent woman in Europe to write erotica. Erotica is such a strong word though, I like to think of it as sensual writing. Anyway, fact is she was a fabulous writer. Anyway, my most favoritest (yes I just said that!) quote from her is….

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

It encompasses everything I have ever tried to voice in one sentence! It’s absolutely fantabulous! And thus my parting quote for the day…

I want to live in Russia…

I would love to live in Russia so that I can have the day off for the horizontal rhumba!