Where's the Snow?

Ho Ho Ho! Rex and I headed down to Faith’s place for Christmas day, since Francis and Susan had gone to Meru for the holiday and elections. Rex and I met up with one of his brothers, who was traveling with his wife and two young children. We went by matatu from town to Kiserian and the younger of the girls sat on “Uncle Rex’s” lap. It was interesting to see how good Rex is with kids because he isn’t the most social guy. Sadly, his niece proceeded to throw up all over Uncle Rex’s pants about halfway to Kiserian. As the Kenyans say, “Pole sana” (“very sorry”). Faith’s husband Harrison picked us up from Kiserian town. We bounced along the road to their house, with Rex and I standing in the back of the pickup truck. As Faith had promised, we passed a few groups of zebras and even some gazelles. It was like a safari, but it was free!

Harrison pulled up to a large wooden gate that seemed to say, “Someone with money lives here.” Surely Faith would have already told me at some point that she lived in a mansion, right? Slightly back from the mansion was another house, smaller but still very nice. As I found out later, Harry works for some wealthy British guy (“Smithers” or “Smuckers” or something similar). In addition to being an actor (screen size unknown), the Brit also owns some businesses in Nairobi. The mansion was nearly completed and Harry had been supervising the construction, so his boss built a house for them on the property. Not a bad deal.

It’s a bit irrelevant, but I still have to tell you about the mansion. Since the place isn’t finished, the boss hasn’t taken up residence, so we got a free tour. I didn’t bother counting bedrooms or bathrooms because that didn’t seem interesting. I can tell you that the guy’s pool table, quaintly situated in front of an oversized flat panel television and a bar counter, was about 12 feet long. Naturally, it’s not the size, it’s how you use it and I love my average-sized pool table back on Summers Road all the same. The feature element of the dining room was a round, wooden table which looked to seat about 15. I’m not He-Man, but I could barely lift one edge of the table. True to the owner’s artistic roots, the pool had a tiled mosaic of the drama masks set in the floor. Oh, did I mention the pool was indoors? Part of the second floor overlooked the pool and there was a hot tub in that section of the second floor. Yeah, a hot tub on the SECOND floor. Crazy.

Shortly after we arrived, I helped cut vegetables for a bit. All the women got a big kick out of ... gasp... a man helping with the cooking. Hey, Faith was in the kitchen, I wanted to talk to Faith, so I thought I would help. Take note, African men: real men aren’t afraid of the kitchen. Faith’s dinner was very good and there was plenty of food. My sweater took a beating because at different times there were kids hanging all over me. There’s something that fascinates Kenyan kids about wazungu (white people).

Despite my best efforts to claim one of the couches, Faith insisted that I take a bed that night. I thought I was safe until a drunk Rex woke me up at some rare hour to share the bed. Take note, American men, real men don’t get concerned about the jokes related to sharing a bed (a twin bed, mind you). A bed is a bed, whether shared or otherwise. Admittedly, I had to learn this lesson as well. Rex didn’t seem to understand the 50/50 nature of sharing. The next day, Faith was wondering if I noticed anything strange about the blanket I used that night, which I had found folded neatly next to the bed. How was I supposed to know that one of the dogs usually slept on that blanket?

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