Africa

I've since left Jordan, blown through the United Arab Emirates, and am now at my second stop in Kenya. Sorry I've been so quiet - it's a combination of being really busy and also struggling with amazingly bad internet connectivity in Kenya. Guess I'll have to get caught up in bits and pieces. Right now I'm in Eldoret, Kenya, home of Moi University. I'm staying in the Eldoret equivalent of a luxury hotel ($40 a night, and for that I still get lousy internet connection, but it's the only hotel in town with even this - two computers in the lobby, one of which is continually in the hands of two Korean girls playing video games). My Kenyan contact was horrified that I was planning on spending this much a night - he had me reserved in a local place, pefectly clean and centrally located, although in a seedy part of town, for $10 a night. Before this I spent four days visiting Kenyatta University, which is right outside of Nairobi. I was one of two people staying at their brand new conference centre. The other was an Englishman named Peter who is a vegan, and the staff just didn't know what to make of him. On my last night there a couple professors took me to the Safari Park Club to eat and see the floor show. The floor show consisted of a bunch of dancers in "native" outfits doing dances to show tunes, not exactly what I was looking for. You sat at big tables and the waiters came around with massive slabs of beef on swords and they would cut pieces off right on to our plate. I had chicken, beef, pork, lamb - along with goat, camel, ostrich and crocodile. I ate until I hurt - now that the Kenyans understood.