A Weekend of Highs and Lows

I've been trying to upload photos now for 10 minutes, and I think the connection at this cyber is just too slow...another challenge for another day.

I was especially excited to show pictures today because I had a weekend full of everything - both good and bad - that this city has to offer, I'm sure.

Yesterday, my breath was literally taken away on my first trip to the ocean - the Indian Ocean. Never having seen the Atlantic or Pacific, walking on to the white sandy beaches to see an endless line of water with beautiful waves was like a clip from a fairy tale. I went with another intern who has family in Haiwaii and grew up in Cali, and this place caught her off-guard! Words just don't do justice folks - even the few pictures I took were inadequate. The experience did make a bit uncomfortable though:

This beach was literally 20 minutes away from where I live, nestled between resorts and what I assume were 5-star hotels. People near the tiki bars were sipping on wine coolers and lounging around on huge rocks, all the while the hustle and bustle of impoverished city life lay just beyond these gated communities. I wonder how such a lucrative tourist industry, clearly booming with business, can exist so closely to people who sleep on dusty streets and drink the rain water. Moving so quickly from one end of the wealth spectrum to the other confirmed my fears of coming back to America and experiencing straight-up emotional culture shock.

After such an interesting excursion, I had work to look forward to this morning, but was caught off guard as Dennis drove me up the main road. It intersects at a round-about that is the center of town, always drawing traffic and congestion, but today there was a huge commotion. As we drove, there were folks on rooftops looking down to the center of the intersection, people were peering through windows, and - no joke - hundreds of people were running to what Dennis called a riot. The whole situation got worse as we inched towards the mayhem: loud screams, two men walking away from it all holding rags to their bleeding heads, cars jumping the median to turn away from it all. All Dennis could say was, "Holy shit, man. Holy shit," but he's Irish - cussing is like breathing for the guy :)

We turned around about 1 block before the edge of the crowd, windows rolled up and eyes straight ahead, not sure what the deal was. After we reached a coffee shop on the other side of town, Dennis called a friend and found out that the police ambused 3 thieves and killed them on the spot, in front of all those people. Apparently, such things are not uncommon but can become highly dangerous with the police just shooting and everyone running towards the conflict. He explained that Kenyans have a lot of pride in the peacefulness of their communities and don't want it corrupted by thieves and the like, so kill them in a community-enforcement type of way.

I wish the whole thing wouldn't have shaken me as much as it did, but we literally transitioned from calm to chaos in minutes - something not entirely uncommon - and although I would have been fine on foot had I just turned away from the commotion and walked away, I was extremely grateful to be in a car. I don't want to enforce the negative image that can easily exist of this culture with stories of violence, but it's hard to see how people have to revert to such horrid means of upholding their image because there is so much corruption in the legal system.

Work was a disappointment: showed up to a waiting room with 10 people already sitting down and was told that there was an all-staff meeting and we would have to wait. After 2 hours of sitting, I finally got up to go explore outside and realized that the office sits right beside a huge tourist attraction - Fort Jesus - just off an inlet from the sea. Once again, absolutely beautiful. A make-shift tour guide from MUHURI who showed me around said that's where I can eat my lunch everyday. Can we say "awesome!" After the meeting, I met a few employees and was sent home, asked to take care of some lame paperwork to ensure it's ok for me to work. So, I really start tomorrow morning :)

I'm in good spirits and have absolutely loved hearing from you all via emails and comments. Please keep the persynal updates coming - they're really refreshing. I"ll respond as soon as I'm able.