African time is there

By -
I am beginning to worry about my employability when I get back home. It's possible that I may have picked up some habits that won't transfer well to the corporate world. A little window into my life these days:

My phone clock is the only watch I own. The other night one of my roommates picked up my phone to check the time. He was a little perturbed to find that apparently my watch is 45 minutes slow. "How do you function and do things on time," he asked. I guess I just hadn't noticed.

Apparently he thought this issue warranted further consideration because the next morning we had the following conversation:

Brad: "Remember a few days ago when we both set our alarms for like 5am for that basketball game, but I ended up having to wake you up?"
Me: "Yea, I set my alarm for the same time as yours but it didn't go off for some reason..."
Brad: "That's because your clock is 45 minutes slow you idiot."
Me: " I don't know, I guess these things happen."
Brad: "That was two weeks ago."

Ooops. Pole sana brotha.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home again, home again

By -
Image
I always thought this might be true, but it's a tough statement to back up. (The Sisters, as seen from Mt. Bachelor) And yet, having had the good fortune of being able to travel a bit in my young life, I'm starting to get more and more confident in my suspicions. (The Woods, outside my Parents' Front Door) So I'm just gonna go right out there and say it. (Some certain Lake, in some certain Crater) If you wanted to make a list of the best places in the world, Oregon has to be near the top. Call me a homer if you want to, but it's true. (The Coast, south of Lincoln City) Luke, I'm not telling you to hurry back. Stay as long as you can, I'll take good care of your car while you're gone. But when you do decide it's time to come back, and you're sitting in the airport reminiscing about all the great times you had in Africa, barGAINing, handling human waste and eating any little creature that crawls within your grasp, just remember ...
Read more

Welcome to the Freakshow

By -
Image
One of the fun things about the little kids here is that they have no qualms about walking up to us and pawing at our arms. They can't really believe the awesomeness of hairy white men. Most people can't, come to think of it. But when it's little kids, nbd. it's cute. On the other hand, when a grown man does it, it's a little creepy. For example, on the bus to Rwanda, I sat down next to a respectable looking businessman type. We exchanged some minor pleasantries, but he was coming from Kenya or possibly Tanzania and didn't speak much English. I guess the extent of our conversation was probably "American!" "Obama-man!" "HAHAHA". Maybe an hour later, my head is slammed against the window by a pothole, knudging me from my slumber. And what do I discover? This guy is, ever so gently, petting my arm. I'm not even sure if he was embarrassed. He just said something along the lines of "You Americans must have really good food. I ca...
Read more

"Sometimes the bar, well ... he eats you"

By -
Image
I'm not sure where we went wrong. Maybe it was overconfidence. Maybe it was just bad luck. Either way, Nairobi, you got the best of us. It started out well enough. We decided that we would try to just cover the 500 miles between Mombasa and Mbale in one day. It would be a long day, but with not too many days left, we figured there was no sense in wasting two days on super long bus rides. These were deluxe buses, too. I mean, given the typical local conditions. We left Mombasa at 8am, were supposed to arrive in Nairobi "no later than" 5pm, well in time for the 8:30pm bus to Mbale. About halfway between Mombasa and Nairobi, we took a mysterious detour into the mountains. No problem, we got time. Then we took another, even more mysterious, detour to pick up the passengers on a broken down bus. Again, no biggie. But we dawdle in the mountains for a while. Sun goes down. Dawdle a bit more. We're really getting "down to the wire," which wouldn't be a big deal...
Read more