On bus typing, about 45 mins outside of Nairobi.
So much dust. Smells like the beginnings of a construction site, or an unfinished basement with dirt floors
A downtown strip, so different from any strip I’m used to seeing. Some business names: Midtown Supersaver, Samlex Hardware, Paws gas station (this last one actually looks like a western gas station air dropped in this minimalist society). By minimalist, I mean, there is not much apart from store fronts set back from road so people can park and mill about in front.
Further on down the road….
Lots of buildings in different stages of construction, and others on their way up but appear to have been abandoned mid-creation. Others are actively being worked on-- you can tell the difference.
Then there are these arcades, as if a building from the suburbs was plopped right in the midst of Kenya’s roadside. The poorest of poor sitting on the side of the road and then a man in a suit on his cell phone.
I’m guessing that was the downtown, because then the bus picks up speed and now there is just one car in front of us.
More farmland, though it doesn’t look like anything could grow out there. Dry and still dusty, lots of brown. Where is the lush green I’ve been hearing about? Out in these parts there are random walled-in developments with bright red rooftops and look like a regular place to live, regular from our standards that is.
There was a good amount of cattle, some of which in the act of being herded. By real shepherds!! I look up out in the distance and see a vast space of nothingness but a few bushes popping up in the yonder. Now a woman walking alongside the road carrying a load on her head, walking somewhere…..then a boy on a bicycle, and a runner in jeans…. Now no cars ahead of us. Not sure where the people are going.
About 2 hours out
The grounds to the left and right are still the brown color of dead grass and dirt, but I’m starting to see the African trees, wide, flat tops, abound. Just like in the Lion King. And even out here, in the seemingly nothingness, still seeing people waiting or walking on the sides of the road. There are no buildings in sight though, or at least they are few and very far between.
Crossing the boarder to Tanzania
We leave everything on the bus, and we all walk into an office, show our passports, get the visa—$100 for US citizens, but it expires after one year, these guys know how to exploit the Americans—walk across the boarder. It’s very dusty. Our quick walk into Tanzania changes the color of our shoes to orange.
Tanzania
Things have changed quite a bit. Mountains off in the distance and sometimes cliffs closer to the road. Rising elevation. Still very dry. Massai people in long red garb along the side of the road and walking in paths about 40 yards from the road which runs parallel to it. You know the Massai people? These are the ones you see all the time on National Geographic: long necks, big hoop rings, the occasional bone through the face (we did not see this last one). We learned all sorts of things about the Massai tribe---to be discussed later.
The most amazing thing by far is the women walking with buckets on their heads, no hands. Sometimes large bags. I cannot understand this.
We have already forgot the sound of our phone rings.
