Monday, rainy Monday

On Monday it rains, and I mean RAINS. I hear it while I am inside a store- it covers the ceiling until I can’t hear myself think, and I know I won’t be getting a matatu home. It’s difficult to catch a matatu during rush hour, and impossible during rush hour in the rain. I have timed my errands so that I’ll be home before dark, but now I know it won’t happen, and getting home after sundown is bad enough, let alone when it’s raining.

So I call a taxi. There are plethora taxis at any major junction and they love love LOVE to ask white people if they need a taxi (I rarely do), but I opt to call my friend Mburu, who has faithfully carried me to and from the airport for several years now, and has bailed me out of a tight spot a few times as well (such as getting home after dark, in the rain). I’d rather give my money to him, since I trust him, he is reliable and respectful, and Susan trusts him: the final test.

While waiting for him I duck into a café and drink a coffee and read my book. After several minutes I hear, ‘happy valentines, Ash-bye’ and look up to see Mburu, in an Arsenol t shirt, grey slacks and rainboots, offering his hand to me. He explained that a customer got his phone wet, so he couldn’t call me to tell me he was here, so he had to come inside to find me. I had forgotten until now that it is February 14th, and his greeting is the first valentine I’ve received. I pay for my coffee and we walk outside to his car, which is tightly parked in a suspect parking lot. I wait in the rain as he backs his car out and get in on the left side. (It always takes me a few days to adjust, both here and back in OR, to getting in on the left side when I’m a passenger. I also look the wrong way when I’m crossing the street. Mostly in Portland.)

We head home slowly, in the pouring rain and bumper to bumper traffic. I’m tired, and my head hurts, I think from the pressure and weather change. We chat, a bit, mostly about his phone, which he holds in front of the car’s heater. Apparently a customer set their umbrella on the arm rest and left a puddle which later preyed upon his phone. I try to explain that he should remove the battery and place his phone in a bowl of uncooked rice, but this madness is lost in translation and I doubt he’ll try it.

He asks if I’d mind his picking up a friend, who lives along the way, and taking her home, also along the way. Of course I don’t mind. After we pick up the woman and drop her off again, Mburu pulls back onto the road, commenting, ‘just you and me on this Valentine’s evening!’ He is just about the only man in Kenya who could say that to me without making me uncomfortable. I think of my mama, whose birthday is today, and I remember my first trip to Kenya: my friend Jedediah gave me a valentine’s day card covered in copious hearts and glitter. I probably still have that card somewhere. I may be something of a packrat.

When we finally get to my apartment I have to dash upstairs to grab my money, nestled cliché-ly in my sock drawer. Susan laughs as I burst into the house: there’s no power; the rain has washed out the line. Again. I use the light on my cell phone to find my room, then to find my money, then to find my way back downstairs to pay Mburu. He is blessed and thankful by my payment; I am a bit poorer but thankful to be home safe and sound. And dry.

Back upstairs, Susan wonders what to do. She has lit two candles which offer feeble light in our cavernous living room. I cook dinner (spaghetti) by the light of my cell phone and laugh: this seems to me an unconventional way of providing light in a developing country. I remember that my computer is fully charged, and so while we eat our food we watch several episodes of Community.

This, I think, is not what people expect when they think of living in Africa: spaghetti, cell phones, laptops and TV during a blackout.