Thursday, August 16, 2012

No sweating!












I have been called a klutz a time or two in my life. Or every day. But who's counting? This leads me to one of my favorite parts of my visit to Kenya. Whenever I dropped something, tripped or ran into something, the people around me would say, "Sorry!" They apologized for my misfortune with no irony or mocking in their voices. No one laughed and no one rolled their eyes. (Looking at you, DAVID!) This was my kind of place!

Another favorite? Going for jogs in Nairobi and not having anyone call me a mzungu ("foreigner," or literally "aimless wanderer" after the early European explorers). No one pointed out my whiteness at all, at least until I left Nairobi for more rural areas. Instead they just thought I was weird for jogging. A young security guard in blue yelled, "No sweating!" and an older man said, "Getting ready for the Olympics?" followed by bursts of laughter. Too much laughter.

1 comment:

LESLIE said...

so awesome! David can learn a valuable lesson from all of this! on a side note, were you in the Olympics?????