Mail Day

Today I got the mail. I know you all might be thinking, oh, hey, me too, but getting the mail is a bit different here. It’s an adventure in itself. During the school year the deputy principal checks the mailbox most Mondays and Thursdays. She’ll bring me the mail since she lives in Kinamba and it’s easy for her to check. However, during breaks, it’s up to me to go to Kinamba if I want mail during the month long break.

I woke up, checked my email, drank my 2 cups of hot delcious porridge and decided that I would check my mail today. It had been 15 days so I was hopeful there would be some to collect. At 9:30 in the morning I left my house and went to the matatu stage. Loud Kikuyu music was blasting from the matatu as I climbed in and sat next to an elderly lady on my right. I sat and waited on that matatu for one hour before we started to head out of town. We were already full but as we left town we kept stopping to pack more people in. I ended up with a 4 year little boy on my lap whose mother was 2 women to the left of me with her daughter on her lap. That is one thing I love about matatu rides here. If you have more than one child, you automatically just put them on whatever stranger has an available lap, no questions asked. We ride in bumpy silence for maybe two thirds of the way before the lady directly to my left looks at me and starts laughing. She apparently can’t hold it in any longer. She begins telling the mother that her boy is sitting on a mizungus lap and the mother starts laughing and tells her son. Her son we realized at that point, also hadn’t noticed he was on my lap yet because he had on one of those winter caps that has a pom pom on top, covers your ears and ties under your chin, thereby hindering his peripheral vision. He comically turns around very slowly and his eyes got very wide. He smiled with only his mouth and then slowly turned back around, unsure of what he wanted to do. He kept half turning back for the next 5 minutes to ever so slyly glance at me before he decided he was ok with sitting on my lap and went back to enjoying the ride. We arrive at Kinamba, only 8 kilometers away from Sipili, but 30 minutes later and tumble out like clowns stuffed in a Volkswagen. I walk to the Posta, only a 5-7min walk, and hear at least 15 ‘Hey mizungu!’s along the way. Thankfully when I got there postmaster Ann was able to retrieve my mail for me and hit me up with some stamps. She’s great; we’re on a name-to-name basis and she helps me out since I lost my mail key. So I’m happy with my mail and I head back to wait for another matatu. I am suddenly surrounded my men offering me a ride on their motorcycle (piki piki). I turn them all down, one because Peace Corps doesn’t allow us to ride them and two, because the boy who asked me the most looked to be only about 15 years old. Not someone I was willing to trust my life with just yet. Thankfully, I did’t have to wait too long at the stage. I had just finished telling them all my name and that I was from America as a matatu pulls up. Once again we are shoved in like sardines. It’s odd to think how normal this has become for me to have half my body squashed underneath the person sitting on either side of me like we’re pringles while someone else has their legs pushed in my back because I was stuck in the seat where there is no seat (aka the small open space that is where people walk to get to the back two rows but when the matatu is moving has a small wooden plank to sit on). I think one person got out at the Kinamba stop but 4 of us got in, including a man carrying a live chicken in a biscuit box. Yes, you read that right. Normally when people here carry chickens, they just have their legs tied together and then hold them on their laps or put them under the seat…which can cause much shock in a person when they move their legs and feel a flutter of feathers and a loud squawk in the middle of a journey. Nope, not this guy. He had this box that was a bit thinner and maybe an inch longer than your average shoebox, with twine tied around like a Christmas present and a little hole in the front where the chickens head poked out. Entertaining yet effective. We rode home with at least 5-6 people (1-2 kids were piled on top) in every row (of a normal, supposed to have 3 people in each row) van. We finally make it back to Sipili and after picking up some bananas, I was on my walk back home. I turn the corner where there is maybe 300 meters before I reach my school when this guy catches up with me. I thought he was one of the workers working on building the kitchen/dining hall when he started a conversation with me. He looked to be in high school but maybe he had just entered college and was on break? He asked my name, if I was American and if I worked at the school. Then he was out of questions. We make it to the school when he stops and I find out he isn’t a worker. He wants my contact info. I told him I didn’t have a phone. He says he wants us to be together. I tell him sorry, I’m married. He says he needs me. He wants me. Literally all I know about him is his first name. I tell him sorry. He looks at me and tells me that if I find any other white Americans who are looking for a husband to find him and he’ll be their guy. I nod and say ok. It’s now noon, I left my house 2.5 hours earlier and now one thing can be checked off for my day: get mail. J What a morning.

It’s weird to think about how easy it is to get mail or even stamps in the U.S. If I want my mail here, I either have to travel to Kinamba or wait for my deputy to bring it. If I want to mail something, I have to remember to buy my stamps when I go to Nyahururu. I can give mail to my deputy to send but only if they’re pre-stamped because by the time she makes it back to Kinamba at night, the post is closed. The Kinamba Posta is open only Mondays-Fridays, 9-5 with a lunch break of an hour or hour and a half. So going during the school year is pretty much impossible. Then in Nyahururu I can buy stamps but the Posta is closed on Sundays as usual and on Saturdays they are only open from 9-12.

I’m not writing this for sympathy or to make you feel bad for having your mailbox so close or whatever, I just wanted to tell you about my mail day. I find it interesting how different little things can be sometimes between here and in America. The big things are easy to notice and hear about like the food, or transportation or the weather but it’s the little things and way of living that I find intriguing. If you would’ve told me before I came to Kenya that it would take me a good part of my morning to get the mail, I’d have told you, you’re crazy. And yeah, sometimes the ways things take time can feel bothersome but it’s what needs to happen and it’s the way things go so you just gotta roll with it J I wish you all a happy Tuesday and mail day! I’d also like to wish you a Happy (almost) Easter, a Happy (almost) Earth Day next Tuesday and a Happy (almost) World Malaria Awareness Day on the 25^th of April!

Many Kisses from Kenya,

Elizabeth