Saturday Afternoon in Nairobi

As we left the slum, those of us who were from North America pulled out our hand sanitizer and cleaned the germs from the slum off our hands. We raced to the city centre to exchange some of our money before the banks closed. I ended up visiting 5 banks but none were willing to cash my travelers cheques. I didn't think this would be such an impossible task in such an international city but the Kenyan banks are very strange about money. They will not exchange American dollars that are older than the year 2008. If you hand them an American bill with a fold in it, they will give you a much lower exchange rate. Anyways, I ended up getting a cash advance from Visa to provide myself with some cash for this weekend. We all decided to go to an Ethioian restaurant that Warrio had heard was very good. We didn't really know where it was so ended up walking through a large part of the city centre where all of the government buildings are. It is actually a very nice part of the city with parks and beautiful old Bitish buildings as well as modern sky scrapers. We were very hot and hungry when we arrived at the restaurant. We sat in an area with a large U-shaped couch and a coffee table to eat from. Warrio and Addis suggested a vegetarian dish that they thought we would like as well as a curried beef and chicken dish. The food was really flavorful which is something that we have all been craving as Kenyan food is very bland. The Ethiopians do not use utensils to eat their food but use a crepe type fermented bread called injira to scoop their food off their plates and into their mouth. They also eat from communal plates. The curried chicken came with one breast of chicken on top and I had ordered this dish to share with Ian so I asked how we were going to divide up the chicken. I was hoping Warrio would ask the waiter for a knife to cut it but he picked up the chicken breast and started pulling it apart with his fingers. It was quite tough so he passed it to Addis to finish the job. They then held out the plate to me so that I could take my portion of the chicken. I was in shock as neithr of these guys had washed their hands since shaking everyone's hands in the slum. I wanted to pass on the chicken but thought that would be too rude, so I took the smallest piece that I could find and said a quick prayer over it before popping it in my mouth. After the main course we had an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. The coffee was served in a demi tasse and was very strong but not at all bitter! It was actually very delicious! When we were finished lunch we went to the supermarket to stock up on foods to supplement our meals at the base. I got oatmeal, peanut butter, cashews, almonds, figs, dates, and chocolate. I think you can see that food has become very important to us! Warrio then led us all to a stand where you could get huge fruit salads or mango/beet juice/avocado drinks. I went for the drink and the other Canadians went for both. We were then escorted to the bus stop and said good-bye to Warrio and Addis as they were staying in the city overnight. We always have to make sure that we get back to the base before night fall as it is very dangerous for us to be out in the dark. Shortly before our bus stop Joelle started urging us to get off the bus so we got the driver to stop and let us off. Joelle got the runs and felt like she was going to explode on the bus so was in a big hurry to get off. She departed in such a hurry that she forgot her I-pod so everyone on the bus was calling us to come back and get it. I thought that was extremely honest of them considering the level of poverty in this area. We walked for about a half an hour back to our base and were quite happy to miss dinner and have a quick sponge bath to cool off.