Last Weekend at ICODEI

This was my last weekend at ICODEI where I have now spent almost 6 weeks. On this coming Saturday I leave for Nairobi where I begin my safari.

On Saturday we said goodbye to 3 of the volunteers, and the remaining 4 of us went down Kakamanga rain forest for some hiking. We had quite an adventure getting there. First we accidentally hitch-hiked for a while when Emily stuck her thumb out as a joke and the guy stopped. He turned out to be a nice pastor with an even nicer car, which sure beat bumping around in the back of a matatu.

We then got a matatu from where he dropped us and I scored a front seat, which is by far the best place to be...if you have the courage to watch the road ahead. That got us in to town, at which point our driver offered to take us to our destination (for a price of course) instead of us having to take piki-piki (motor bikes), which we jumped at. Unfortunately, although he knew of the rain forest, apparently there are 2 entrances to the park. So after 30 minutes down bumpy dirt roads, we found ourselves at the wrong spot and in a bit of a disagreement with our driver about how much we should pay to get to the right spot. Fortunately, like most people, he soon became philosophical about it - hakuna matata - and agreed to take us to the right spot even if he took a loss because he wanted us to be happy.

I also had an entertaining conversation with him about gay marriage; like most Kenyans he disagrees with it (homosexuality is illegal here) but he was surprisingly open-minded to what I said. (Uh, no, I'm not gay but that doesn't mean I think others should be deprived of basic human rights.)

That didn't stop him from offering to buy one of my "sisters" (the other volunteers) as a second wife. Polygamy is common here, as is paying a dowery (a dozen or so cows) to the parents of the bride. They don't seem to understand that mazungus aren't really interested in being second or third wives. And what's more their perfectly blunt about asking. It is usually about the third thing they say. 1) "Hi. How are you?" 2) "Assist me with money." 3) "How much for your 'sister'?" We normally just ask for so much everyone laughs it off but every once in a while someone says he agrees, like with our matatu driver, at which point you have to explain that it isn't possible...or just go along with it since they likely could never come up with that much anyway.

...I could though. A few Kenyan wives wouldn't be too bad either. I'm going to rename them though. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...