These are a few of my favorite things !

Jill got her hair braided today, and she looks a lot like a mermaid.

Yesterday Jill and I were talking about our favorite things about Africa on the way into Ngong, so I thought I would share a bit of a list:

• In Africa, the food you eat comes from Africa. If you have a tomato chances are it was grown very close to where you live. I love how the cycle of life is so evident here. They grow their own food, or buy it from neighbors at the market, then they eat it and feed the leftovers to the pigs. All the natural organic products seem to have their own natural, organic life cycle. The rest of the garbage is another story though, as they burn pretty much everything else ! In North America it is the "Organic" food that costs a fortune, whereas here it is the packaged and imported food that costs a fortune. That doesn't really make sense to me.
  
• I love mangoes. They are like 15-20 Ksh at the market, and they are so delicious. I hate, on the other hand, having to barter for them because the vendors typically try and rip us off, and make us pay extra. Some of the vendors are kind though, and give us a fair price.
• I love "Africa Time". Seemingly, nothing happens fast here. There is so much less stress, and less to get done, and more time to do it in. There are alway people lounging in the grass on the side of the road, or riding their bikes to town. When I first arrived in October one of the things that struck me was the number of people riding bikes, and the number of people walking places. I love being able to walk 5 minutes to get to the store and buy a coke. And then getting to walk 5 minutes back to the store to return the bottle.
• Pop tastes better out of a glass bottle.
  
• I love Kenyan-isms. Almost all the Kenyans we've met all talk using the same vocal inflictions and the same "sayings". For example, you'll ask them a question like, "Do you like oranges Jane?" and they will look at you and say "Me?" and after you've confirmed that you were indeed talking to them, they answer. They also don't really have a word for "hello" in Swahili, so when you are greeting some one you instead say "habari yako ?" which means "how are you?" and they other person will say "msuri" which means "fine". So when we say "Hello" in English, they almost always respond by saying "Fine". Jill is the best out of all of us at imitating their speech patterns.
• I love how most of the matatu's are "pimped out". They have music blaring, stickers of rappers and hip hop women, and some have screens to play music videos on. One time we were on a matatu that had a sticker on the mirror that said " Don't kis tha driver!" (*see photo above... it was so funny we had to take a picture) In the windshield of every matatu there is a piece wood or cardboard that has the route number on it, and once we were in a matatu that had "Route 23" on one side and " On a date" on the other side.
  
• Mmm mendazi! Mendazi are these delicious triangles of fried dough that taste like heaven when they are fresh. You can get them for 5 Ksh at just about any store, although some are better than others.

That's all I've got for now. There are many other things that I know I love about Kenya. It's a really beautiful place, equally because of the people as the landscape.

peace,

Bethany