kelele

Just around 8 p.m. on this Furahiday evening the whole of Embu experienced a power failure – and I was blessed with a wonderful new experience: a silent town.

The music @ the Night Club next door stopped playing, everything dark and I just reached out for my candoooools which I had bought the other day for exactly such situations.

Unfortunately, the electricity came back before I could fall asleep…electricity = 24h of music music music…soukous, benga, hiphop…and some Michael Bolton, Dolly Parton & other tortures. Well…if you can’t beat them, join them.

Cheers!

grilled chicken now available

My colleague called me from Kakamega and told me to go online and download a new binary file for the software we are currently using (the programmer compiled a new binary and had it sent to us – 1,3 MB, which is a lot for the average modem connection).

So I went out at 8 p.m., in the search of a decent inet/cybercafé for kesho asubuhi that would enable such a download. I think they were already closed by that time as I couldn’t find any and also some descriptions aren’t that reliable (“somewhere there down the road behind this building” (waving his hand into that direction). Somewhere can be anywhere.

“Mori turi te salutant” is what I first thought upon catching this scene with my cam:

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The bad news: these poor little (fat) kukus were sitting in front of “Morning Glory Hotel” here in Embu, with their feet tied together and awaiting their death “Furahiday” morning.

“Don’t you have any mercy with me?”, I asked the nearby waiter.

Waiter: “Me? Nooo..you see, they can already see their friends being grilled in the oven so they know what will happpen. We will cut their throats tomorrow morning.”

No wonder the place is called Morning Glory…

The good news: Safaricom GPRS works perfectly well. I just made the mistake of using a mixup of sent & own settings so it never worked. But then I thought about deleting all settings and trying it again with a clean installation et voil? : GPRS in Embu, the mobile phone connected via Bluetooth, everything at full speed and no need to look at the clock as the rates are charged per MB downloaded. It really works! Amazing….

beef kebap & co

Everyone, THX for the comments! Just accessed my mails via Celtel & Safaricom dial-up. In fact, I bought a Celtel SIM card today to check out their GPRS for prepaid customers (first card I had bought was expired so I had to return it – imagine that!) but whatever I try – it just doesn’t work. Will I have to wait until I am back in Nai @ SaritCentre to eventually understand the settings needed for GPRS + my computer? Or…Mental, saidia mimi tafadhali: how did you set it up on your 6230(i)? I understand that GPRS is much better. I do have a notebook + bluetooth connection + Nokia 6230i + Nokia PC Suite 6.81. (rel 13) but just can’t get it going with GPRS. Dial-up works fine though, although @ 9.600…

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So I tried this “Ndugekire maguta mengi irio-ri” thing on the mpichi that cooks @ the snack bar downstairs – I wrote it down so that he would understand it. As a result of that, the whole kitchen staff explained to me the difference between “beef smokies” and “beef sausages” (they still look the same to me, but so what) and I ended up being served with something called “Beef kebap” for 30 /=.

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Delicious!

The knife is “Made in Germany” – and while pointing this out to one of the waiters (“Hey, the knife is from my country..” ), he imediately named almost all players and trainers of the German National (soccer) team. Now THAT’s Kenya :-)

On my way to work, I came across these dead Land Rovers that had been parked on a government plot.

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……………

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Embu doesn’t seem to be too hectic. These birds (in the middle of the picture) awaited the first flying ants that came out of a hole in the ground and caught them “in action”. It really rained buckets last night, but just about lunch time, Embu again looked like a dry city in the sun…I guess it’s the light and the Jacaranda trees that make this town so charming.

home sweet home (in Embu)

1 EUR ==> ~ 90 Kshs.

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1 new bed (made from cheaper materials, Embu price): 1650 /= Kshs.
1 new high density mattress 6,7 x 4 ft.: 3550 /= Kshs.
1 high density foam 20″ x 22″ (to fit in the remaining frame the mattress doesn’t cover – hey, I am tall!): 230 /= Kshs.
1 really huge (72 x 90″) blanket: 675 /= Kshs.
2 pillows (27 x 18″): 398 /= Kshs.
4 pc bed & pillow sheets: 799 /= Kshs.
1 Kikoi to cover the window: 300 /= Kshs.
1 “PermaNet” pre-treated mosquito net: 800 /= Kshs.

A wonderful colleague by the name of Zakayo who organised the bed at this price, had it delivered to the room, kicked the landlord to have the room repainted in time and just stood in front of the building when I arrived: priceless .

Zakayo – thengiu muno!

We rushed to Maguna Andu (“helping people”) supermarket here in Embu to buy the mattress etc before the shops closed and rewarded us with the obligatory Tusker and some mbuzi choma.

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2 kgs of Mbuzi for 4 people

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preparing the meat for the grill…

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(pole for the weak picture quality)

Mbuzi (goat), Kachumbari (tomatoes, onions), Ugali (maize), Salt, Tusker (beer) and coke. YEAH!

When I woke up next day, I still smelled like a goat. Thx god it’s a holiday.

My room is approx. 20m away from a bar/restaurant…meaning: I smell fried chips and the meat grill while writing these lines, am killing cockroaches who want to make their way from the bathroom to my bed, there is no water in the “kitchen” and I have meanwhile gotten used to the noises coming from the bar (which opens @ 7 a.m. and closes long after I’ve gone to bed)…but it’s a safe (?) place somewhere downtown in Embu, relatively cheap, on a tarmacked (sp?) road (less mud during rainy season) and right now they are playing Daudi Kabaka’s “Safari Tanganyika”. Could I ask for more?

YES! An internet café would be nice… *gg*

twin luck??!

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“TWIN LUCK” insecticide chalk…..this stuff actually WORKS!

I was cleaning the bathroom when a really huge cockroach climbed my leg in panic. I think it didn’t like the DETTOL I poured on its homebase. Well, bad luck, Mr Cockroach.

After the water dried up, I applied this chalk and just after a few minutes, I saw a middle-sized cockroach running through the drawn chalk lines and instantly falling on its back and dying. An amazingly effective poison.

(Insects kama ants are ok for me, lakini these cockroaches come from the sewage tank and THEN walk over my food & dishes. Not nice…).