Countdown to Farewell

Well just as I’m finally feeling like a part of my village, I’ve made my decision: I’m getting a site change. Today I rode my bike past one of the primary schools in town, and instead of the eighth grade boys stopping their football game to screech, “China china yangyangyangyang howayoo howayoo hiiiii,” in modulated nasal voices, they just said, “Hallo, madame, howayoo?” and continued playing.

Yesterday I passed the same school and some of the older girls asked me to join their game of jump rope, which ended up being the most hilarious thing they’d seen in years because I couldn’t clear the twine they were holding 2 feet off the ground. Today they greeted me by name, if only to outdo the boys, who only know me as madame.

Peddling past the familiar fields of maize that hug the rolling foothills of the purple escarpment looming in the distance, I started to think of all the things, and all the people, I’m going to miss from my village.

• Most of all, and most obviously, my friends Hillary, Julia, Emily and Mwalimu Nancy
• the neighbors’ kids, all the different shopkeepers, vendors and other people around town whom I buy things from – Chumba, who is probably the most honest and down-to-earth shopkeeper I’ve ever met in Kenya
• and his neighbor who sells my favorite bread (United, unsliced)
• Nellie at the agrovet
• Mary and Joshua (or is it Joseph) at the hoteli
• the ladies at the posta
• Julius and the characters at the petrol station
• the woman who never smiles who runs the duka (shop) where I buy potatoes and green peppers
• the bored youths who run the only supermarket in town
• Eric, my tomato vendor, who is STILL trying to set me up with his brother
• all the mamas who sell me vegetables
• the old old Mzee who wheels around jerrycans of water with his fiercely loyal and slightly less old dog with the saggy nipples
• the two or three rotating Luo fundis (tailors) whose collective ability to understand my English seems to fluctuate from proficient to less than zero in a single minute
• all the high school girls I’ve befriended from my school and others around the village
• the Luhya kids who scream my name when they see me after I taught them that screaming China is bad behavior
• our DO who has the best deadpan humor in all of Rift Valley and borrowed all my back issues of Newsweek and who must not be that corrupt because he’s been around for almost nine months now
• the matatus drivers and drunks who sideline as matatu touts when they’re coherent enough to make out potential customers coming from a distance
• the nurses and other hospital staff at the Mission Hospital
• the cook at the Catholic parish who owns two bicycles he souped up himself
• the precocious eighth grade midget at the School for the Disabled who I hope will become the first female President of Kenya
• Alfred the water technician who lives next door and always seems to be passing me on the road
• the farm manager and his staff who used to visit me in the shamba to admire my crops hoping to score some free zucchini and squash
• the old Mzee who spends all day every day tending only one cow which happens to always wander onto the VCT premises and eat all the plants intended for landscaping
• the divisional public health officer who always seems to have somewhere important to rush off to on his motorcycle but was always happy to talk to me about whatever work I was doing in the community (a rare trait in these parts)
• the black-and-white Colobus monkeys chortling in the trees next to my house

Wow this is not even an exhaustive list but you get the idea. The move seems like it has been a long time coming, but the logistics have come together quickly and I'll probably be whisked off to my new home without much time to say goodbye.