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"Only God can juj me"
Thus spake the speeding matatu, quickly followed by "Nuff Respect" and "Sparky." Another captured the kenyan accent: "Heavy Heaters" did not refer to warming devices. Our eyes are caught by the carefully painted mini-vans and our fancy by the names. The peculiar is, of course, relative.
"Do It Yourself Hardware" provoked an unexpected reaction from our friend Elijah as we left Wheels on a tide of bad pool and Tusker. "'Do It Yourself'," he said, "I don't understand this." (Dear Reader, the accent is crucial to this story.) Marta and I were forced to bend double with laughing, arms flailing, gasping, barely able to query the source of his confusion. Elijah tried to explain: "It seems rude." Observing our inability to speak, he supplied further, "Is it, 'Please may I buy those scissors?' -- 'Do it yourself!'" He is one of our favorite people in Kenya, which is saying a lot.
Of the companions we have met on these travels, many stand out; the only one I could do without is the tricky little cockroach which has been living in my backpack for a few weeks now. Since I am too delicate to touch it, I have tried to coax it out by making little paths for it to scurry to independence...however, it prefers to delve deeper into the bag or to make kamikazi-like dives at my hands. Finally, heart pounding, I said to Marta, "Maybe I should just leave it there." "Uh, yeah, I think you should," she replied. Do cockroaches explode at high altitudes, I wonder? Will I arrive in Philly with it intact? When they fumigate the cabin, do they likewise poison cargo? I'm not sure if I will feel worse about finding it as a dark smudge in my bag or not finding it at all, having to live with the perpetual uncertainty of its whereabouts.
While the do-it-yourself concept has not penetrated commercial Kenya, I am likewise struck by the absence of proverbs in America. Here, there is a proverb for everything. I am reminded of an early Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Picard meets the people who speak only in metaphors. But I digress. Too lazy to formulate my own Swahili phrases beyond ordering breakfast food, I taken to speaking only in proverbs. There seems to be one for every occasion. The following neatly illustrates this:
(Scene: Hillcrest Hotel, 8:15am)
GEORGE our waiter: (something in swahili)
ME: (assuming he said Good morning, how are you]) Fiti (fine)
GEORGE: juice? fruit? cornflakes? eggs? toast? tea or coffee?
ME: tafidali, nipe ndizi, hapana how do you say watermelon? no watermelon -- na cornflaces na maziwa moto na chai. a sante sana (please bring me banana, not watermelon, cornflakes with hot milk and tea)
GEORGE: (something in swahili)
ME: uh....
GEORGE: (laughing, something else in swahili, tapping pen on his waiter's pad)
ME: Mtoto wa nyoka ni nyoka! (The son of a snake is a snake!)
And then it's GEORGE'S turn to scramble for an appropriate response; I turn with satisfaction to the April 2001 edition of Time Magazine and wait for my cornflakes.
- Nicole
July 10, 2002 • Nairobi, Kenya
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