20:41, Friday, 21 September, 2012

That wasn’t the end of our car adventures.  Oh no, it was just the beginning.  A couple days later we had seven guys plus me all pushing our tiny car in the parking lot of Galleria (where we get our groceries) while Michelle sat inside trying to jumpstart it.  Little Miss Sunshine style.  Annnnnd after going around the entire section of parking lot (turns and all) it still wouldn’t start, that is not until mechanic #9,567 at the nearby gas station came over and fixed the problem.  A night or two later we are on our way to have Michelle’s last night dinner with some of the balloon pilots who happened to be in town.  Bumper to bumper traffic, and our car stops.  Honks all over the place, although I don’t know what anyone expected us to do.  Thank the Lord, apparently there is a mechanic everywhere in Kenya (and I’m starting to see why).  An hour spent at a garage right there on the side of the road with mechanic #9,568, a mechanic who happened to double as a pastor of a nearby international faith Christian Church.  Interesting combination.  Back in traffic, and after not moving even a kilometer for two hours, we realized we were doomed.  We called the balloon pilots, and ended up eating the dinner that was supposed to be in a fancy restaurant at a Kenchic Inn next to an Oilibya gas station, all dressed up.  We were so hungry by that time, and demolished a chicken and huge stack of fries between the two of us.  You never knew a Kenchic Inn meal could taste so good.  And honestly, it was fitting.  Michelle and I aren’t fancy pants girls, and I’m glad our last proper meal together was just so.

It was hard dropping Michelle off; I missed her as soon as she walked out of sight.  Luckily I could look forward to meeting JACK DARWIN, a name we had pronounced with boisterous strength all summer.  Honestly, with a name like that, how can you not exaggerate things?  He turned out to be a kind person with a good sense of humor, 32 years old when I would have guessed 22.  I was glad to be the first one to introduce him to Africa, even if it was in the form of Nairobi for a couple of days.

Jack is from California, and after driving him downtown to get health insurance, I was informed that driving in Nairobi is crazier than driving in San Francisco.  I couldn’t understand how that was possible, but Jack made a good point: in San Francisco there are rules.  Here, I would get honked at if I didn’t run the only red light for ten kilometers in either direction.  Yet there’s something satisfying about the ordered chaos; it always feels fantastic when you are driving back, perhaps because you’ve accomplished something you never thought you could, perhaps because you are simply high on the fact that you’re miraculously not dead. 

We stopped on the side of the street to pick out a new choo for Serena Camp on the way back from the health insurance expedition; baboons destroyed their, TPing the surrounding trees in the process like a bunch of mischievous high schoolers.  Following the purchase, I got to witness Jack wielding a choo over his head as he sprinted through traffic.  Not a sight you see every day.

On the big drive back to the Mara, I had my first legitimate experience with the high lift jack, a phobia of mine.  We got a flat tire about 13 kilometers out from Narok, thank goodness after we had passed the freeway, Great Rift Valley escarpment and major hills.  Because I cannot pull the jack’s lever down without throwing my entire weight on it, I instructed Jack on how to use his namesake and prayed the entire time he was cranking.  We managed to get the tire changed, and when we had secured the jack back into the car, an enormous relief washed over me.  Self-sufficiency is a good feeling, and I found the experience overall quite fun – after all, it was an adventure!