Hand to Mouth

I meant to choose this title recently when I was describing how I was eating ugali with my hands. I remember hearing a Joan Baez song many, many years ago of the same title. I have no clue about the lyrics, but I guess it's a safe bet they weren't about ugali. Instead they likely better describe the disturbing scene I encountered about a week ago. I was describing the trash container where dogs, goats and vultures are hanging out sometimes. Some seven days ago I actually saw a kid inside, looking for anything to eat. I gave him some shortbread I had. Even in this food rich region some are better off than others. This was the first time I had seen someone starving in this area.

And some are even better off, as the long lines in the NBC bank prove. Spent 90 minutes to find out that even to change a simple euro bill you need a passport. Now I happen to have like three or four (long story), but never handy when I need it. So I sighed and walked off with my remaining 3,000 shillings (less than three bucks). No disco for me this weekend. I hope I last until Monday and I hope I don't forget to bring my passport...

The banks are fascinating, btw. People walk in with plastic bags of cash. The better-off have like chic brief-cases. Women with purses. And they don't put down just a few bucks. I have seen a guy with a stack of 10,000 (10 bucks) that was probably a foot high, maybe more.
It feels like being in the movies.

So as in other countries it seems that the rich are getting richer (there are some SUV's being driven around) and the poor are getting poor.

"Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king
and a king ain't satisfied til' he rules everything."

(Badlands - B. Springsteen)

While I was running today I had one of those encounters with a girl that just went nuts when she saw a Mzungu. Maybe eight, nine years old. She started running with me (in freaking FLIP-FLOPS!!!). It was downhill and I am not fond of screaming down a paved downhill slope. I have still some other work cut out for my knees. Should I have told her to stop just because I was concerned about her knees? She had a big grin on her face and kept telling me stuff. Oh well, my language skills after 4 weeks are rather embarrassing. I had been too busy the last couple of weeks to look in my study book again, so I am still stuck at my two week level.

As the street tilted upward the flip-flopper could not keep up and she ran straight into someone else's property, still smiling brightly. Ok, that must have been fun for her and she'll probably tell all her friends at school on Monday.