A Kenyan Ghost Story

As is often the case in Kenya, internet connectivity was a bit of an issue so I'll try and get caught up. My time in Kenya has been very successful on the Global Module front, with the requisite number of Scudder-related travel adventures. I spent the time at Kenyatta University, one of our main international partners, and I feel we're making great strides there. I've managed to pick out several departments (sociology, literature and history) to act as "homes" or "incubators" for the Global Modules as we continue to grow. I'm working on a grant with some folks at North Carolina A&T University that would bring some much needed computers to Kenyatta.

I spent the time at the Conference Centre at Kenyatta, which is a pretty nice place - and there were actually some folks there this time (unlike last time when the only other person was a professor from England who was a vegan, which the meat-loving Kenyans couldn't begin to understand). Unfortunately, the internet usually seemed to be down at the business center and a couple different nights the electricity was down in the Conference Centre itself (which was made even more annoying by the fact that it was on in the rest of the campus). What made it even stranger was that sometimes the electricity would work in one outlet and not anyplace else, which led to me almost scaring myself to death one night. I had come back from a day full of visits and was greeted with the information that the electricity was out - and that the backup generator was acting up - and that the repair folks had decided this was a wonderful time to go on strike. So, I had dinner by myself in the dining hall - the crowd that had been there earlier had now cleared out. However, the crew that worked the dining hall could not have been kinder and took great care of me - whipping me up my own meal - which I downed with a bottle of Fanta, which apparently is the national drink of Kenya. I always asked for a Coke and they would always stare at me sadly and encourage me to get a Fanta instead. Armed with candles and matches I went back to my room - and setting up the mosquito netting in the darkenss was another adventure and I almost suffered the total humiliation of hanging myself in the mosquito netting (and thus providing proof positive of the total idiocy of all Americans). I sat down at my desk, with the television behind me, to write in my travel journal in the total darkness of my room - and, for that matter, the entire Conference Centre. At a certain point I suddenly heard a woman's voice behind me - and just about jumped out of my skin when I turned around and saw nothing behind me. And then the television blinked on. Apparently the only outlet in the entire Conference Centre which had decided to work was the one attached to my television. The next morning I told the story to the morning crew and they thought it was very funny and joked that I must have been visited by a jin (obviously drawn from the Arabic jinn) - but then they more seriously stated that jin were more common on the coast in Mombasa.