karaoke and cakes

Yesterday I was in the lab at the clinic with Joyce (the lab tech) and she was enthusiastically singing along to a song on the radio. So I asked her if there were karaoke places in Nairobi and she said, "Karaoke who?" About three weeks ago I found out that Kariuki (which sounds a lot like that beloved art form- Karaoke) is a traditional Kikuyu name.

My parents left on Sunday and it's sad not to have them around any more to talk to but I think the rest of my time here will continue to be wonderful. Yesterday was a taxing day. I was at the clinic, at the centre, on 2 home visits, at the doctor's with Mary and then we went to buy food. Yesterday was also hard because I had an awful conversation with someone at the clinic (a friend of Joyce's). I don't really want to recount it because I'll just get frustrated again. He was a bit anti-Western (which I can grasp) but he also used a lot of stereotypes (both for Americans and other cultural groups). Anyway.... in addition, sometimes when I'm called to do many things in one day I end up feeling as if I didn't get anything productive done. So today I went through more concrete tasks. I'm reading through a paper for one of the women at the house (Tabitha- who works and Gataka and around the house) for her SW degree so I finished looking through that this morning (it's on the effects of alcoholism on the orphans and vulnerable children at the centres), did my laundry, went through plans with Mary etc...

Oh the cakes. It's already starting to be funny instead of irritating- that's how stories are born I guess. So on Sat. night my dad and I were slated to make pizza again for the family. We also decided to make guacamole since the avocados here are delicious and plentiful. We dad was feeling under the weather the last few days he was here so mom and I went to get the groceries that needed to be purchased in the store and then I went with Tabitha to negotiate for the veggies at the market. Back at home we enlisted John to help us (he's really interested in learning how to make food- not a traditional interest for men here). It was tiring because we were making food for 10 people and all from scratch. Earlier in the day I had been asked to also make a cake for someone's granddaughter's birthday and had agreed. Because the kitchen is not big enough to make everything at once I thought I'd start the cake after dinner. At 9:30 we had finished eating and the woman who wanted the cake was back to pick it up. But since it wasn't ready, then she just stayed to watch me make it. I was a little tired and irritable at this point but set about making the cake. An hour later it tasted terrific but hadn't risen at all and looked a little puny and miserable. I felt bad about it not being so great but some of the cakes I've tasted here aren't so flavorful and at least it tasted good.... AND I was relieved to be done. Then the woman (who also works around the house most days) asked for another cake. I was pretty peeved but I decided it seemed the best thing to do. This cake (an hour later down the road) had risen fine but was a little burnt on the top because I couldn't get the top burner to go to a low setting. So I felt bad about that cake too AND THEN the woman told me she would make yet another cake in the morning and I could get up early and watch her. I (hopefully) politely declined. Not many people have ovens in this area so I thought that the reason they wanted me to make a cake is because her family didn't know how. But they just wanted to see how an American makes a cake. There is a happy ending because I attended the party and all cakes were enjoyed. Perhaps that story is a little boring but the whole event made me think of when I was in the Philippines and I made cookies with the house help there. Once we had finished Ruby Ann suggested we make another batch. This seemed silly to me and I explained that had we wanted to make more we could've doubled the batter. But that wasn't the point to her- the fun of it was the whole process of making the cookies and expediency didn't come into play at all.

On what I plan to do for the rest of my time: I wanted to work in a displacement camp if possible and it looks like I will be able to do that, hopefully by next week at the latest. I'm not quite sure where yet. My host family would like me to go to a camp in Nyeri where they are from (and where they probably feel they can keep an eye on me) but Nyeri also seems to be the hot spot of anti-western sentiment as they don't want to the U.S. or Britain to interfere with Kibaki's government. So there's a little more investigation to be done.