My new digs or kicking it at the Y.W.C.A.!

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My new digs

My new digs are at the YWCA….yes, another Christian organization…really, not another word. This lodging took quite a bit of negotiation to acquire. Five trips on foot from my previous location (about twenty minutes each way) as I recall. Twice in one day actually on the day I sealed the deal. The YWCA is closer to the city center and leaves me about a thirty minute walk to work. I’m excited about the location because I’ll have built in some more exercise into the day and the distance to my favorite cyber café is cut by 75%. I couldn’t have gotten this figured out if it hadn’t been for Betty Njoroge. She’s the one who got stuck with me on arrival; also an ob/gyn physician, from Kenya, trained in Italy, fluent in Italian, working on her MPH in Seattle, mother of a 5 yr old girl, as well as the fine fine woman who chauffeured me to the Y for my initial visit.

I called the night before I was to start staying with them to confirm. I was starting to get exasperated when a full week AFTER I had paid in full for one month’s lodging, they couldn’t seem to tell me whether my reservation started on the 20th or the 21st. “Can you call us tomorrow morning at 10 am?” Actually, no, because I’m going to be on a PLANE! Apparently some things are written down and some are not. The gentleman was very clear about not wanting to give me a room already reserved for someone else. I was unable to get across, clearly, that one of those people with a room already reserved was ME! I was trying to remind myself that for 3000 shillings less for a month than I paid for 10 days at my other place, I managed to secure a room, a home base. I think my exasperation showed because while they had a room for me, it wasn’t the room we had agreed upon. I was so exhausted after a week on the road visiting study sites that I was really trying not to care. The room we’d agreed upon, for which I had paid money, was a self contained single with a mosquito net, a bed, a table, and a locked closet. Self contained means with toilet and shower for you, not communal toilet and showers. The room they brought me to was not self contained, had no mosquito net, did have a bed and a sink and a desk. Well, I was really tired and really trying not to care, but I just about lost it when I was trying to put stuff away and every flat surface was covered in dust. Actually dirt. No mosquito net. No hot water in the communal showers. I arrived to dinner fifteen minutes before what had been billed to me as a restaurant was advertised to close and told that all they had remaining from the menu was beef stew and cabbage. I wanted to cry.

What I did was wash some clothes for the next day and hang them over surfaces I had cleaned, enjoy a chocolate Luna bar given to me by my dear sweet Jenni, a diet coke and went to bed covered by the mosquito net made for me by my dear sweet mother. Thanks, mom! Thanks, Jenni! The people at the Y thank you as well.

The YWCA has a huge common room with whicker furniture. The whicker furniture holds blue and white cushions encased in plastic. There’s also a little shop with treats in the window as well as clothes and toiletries but I haven’t yet seen it actually open. There’s a restaurant as well. They run out of food fairly frequently so I’ve only sampled the cabbage. Quite good.

Now, bear in mind that I wasn’t here last week and I’m now not going to be here this upcoming week and I’m really really grateful that I have a home base. Now I just have to work on hot water in the shower and making it to dinner before they run out of food.

Until next time. Perhaps by then they'll have my scantily clad, buff, beef cakes ready and waiting for me. One can only hope.

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